Tobacco use, particularly smoking, can really impair the body’s ability to heal from injuries. Here are six main reasons to reduce your smoking during injury recovery:
Reduced Oxygen Delivery:
Smoking reduced the size of our blood vessels and reduces blood flow, which means less oxygen and fewer nutrients reach that area that needs healing. Oxygen is crucial for healing because it helps with the formation of new blood vessels and promotes tissue repair.
Delayed Inflammatory Response:
Even though we think inflammation is bad, inflammation is a natural part and is needed in the healing process. It helps remove damaged tissue from the injury site. But did you know smoking can interfere with this process, making it slower and impairing the inflammation process.
Decreased Collagen Production:
Collagen is is important in the body because it provides structure and strength to tissues within the body. Smoking reduces collagen production, which can result in weaker tissue formation and slower wound closure.
Immune System Suppression:
Smoking weakens the immune system, making the body more susceptible to infections. Infection can further delay the healing process and lead to other complications.
Increased Risk of Complications:
Smoking increases the risk of various complications during the healing process. These include wound infections, tissue death (necrosis) and delayed wound healing which can then increase the risk of developing chronic wounds.
Impaired Bone Healing:
Did you know that smoking does impair bone healing? It’s crazy but after a fracture or injury to the bone, smoking really slows down the process and it can take months and months for the injury to heal all because of smoking.
We all know that smoking is not good for us, and more often than not, it is a habit which we find hard to break out of. Don’t worry about breaking it, just focus on reducing it by 2 cigarettes per day (for example), because even that will benefit you so much!
