Any exposure to tobacco–even a single cigarette or second-hand smoke–can cause immediate damage to the body, according to a report released Thursday by U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, the Orlando Sentinel reports.
“There is no safe level of exposure to cigarette smoke,” the surgeon general’s report said. “The chemicals in tobacco smoke reach your lungs quickly every time you inhale, causing damage immediately. Inhaling even the smallest amount of tobacco smoke can also damage your DNA, which can lead to cancer.”
The report said low levels of exposure, including second-hand smoke inhalation, also can damage the lining of blood vessels, which can lead to strokes, heart attack and blood clots.
The assessment, the 30th by the surgeon general to address tobacco, comes 46 years after the first surgeon general report warning the public about the dangers of smoking. Part of an Obama administration campaign against smoking, the report says it aims to expand on previous findings about “the multiple ways that tobacco smoke damages every organ in the body, resulting in disease and death.”
As The Washington Post reports, the study found that tobacco smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals and compounds, including hundreds that are toxic and at least 70 that cause cancer,.
The Post said the surgeon general’s assessment found no evidence that adding filters to cigarettes has made them safer or that “low-tar” and “light” cigarettes are any less dangerous. In fact, modern cigarettes are designed to be addictive, delivering nicotine more efficiently than ever before, helping explain why so many people get hooked so quickly, the report says.
Benjamin noted, though, that quitting smoking at any time can give the body a chance to heal the damage.
