Risk factors — smoking

Smoking and your bones — one more reason to quit

If you smoke, you probably already know you should quit to reduce your risk of cancer and heart disease. But you may not be aware of the effects smoking has on your bones.

• Smoking significantly increases the chance that you will experience an osteoporotic fracture.
• Smoking leads to poor vitamin D status, which in turn can affect calcium absorption and metabolism.
• The anti-estrogenic effect of smoking exacerbates the negative effects of hormonal imbalance on your bones.
• Smoking depletes the body of vital bone-building nutrients, especially vitamin C.
• Smoking increases the body’s toxic burden of cadmium, lead, nicotine, and dozens of other toxic substances that interfere with calcium absorption and damage bone.
• Smokers who fracture a bone heal more slowly than non-smokers. Smokers are also less able to heal the microfractures that occur on a regular basis in our bones, leading to poor bone quality.

In short, the more you smoke the more damage you do to your bones. Quitting smoking is a great opportunity to quickly improve your bone health. The good news is that once you stop smoking, you can reverse the negative effects smoking has had on your bones.

 

Original Publication Date: 05/11/2009
Last Modified: 02/16/2010