5 unexpected ways smoking affects your body

You probably know that smoking cigarettes can cause lung cancer and heart disease, but did you know that smoking may also dull your taste buds and impair your hearing? Here are five lesser-known ways that smoking can affect your body.

1. Fewer taste buds

Foodies: beware. Smoking can dull — or kill — your taste buds by changing the blood supply your taste buds are getting. 

A truth® partnership with BIGS Sunflower Seeds is calling out the damage tobacco use can inflict on taste buds by distributing mini bags of flavored sunflower seeds at a variety of events, including at the Vans Warped Tour, High School Nation and at select minor league baseball games. truth is also drawing further attention to the issue with a video airing during the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards.

2. Hearing loss

The cochlea, an important part of the inner ear, receives a reduced amount of oxygen if you smoke, which can be associated with hearing loss, according to a meta-analysis. 

3. Worse eyesight

Smoking can increase the chance of developing many eye conditions that affect vision, such as cataracts, which cloud the eye. Research shows that smokers are at an increased risk of developing cataracts, compared with nonsmokers.

4. Skin problems

In addition to aging your skin, smoking can also prolong how wounds heal and increase the likelihood of infections and skin conditions. 

5. Erectile dysfunction

An erection is only possible when blood vessels in the penis enlarge and fill with blood. Smoking disrupts blood vessels in that area of the body, meaning the action can’t always happen.