According to a 2010 AP Report,
Smoke from a single cigarette takes 24 hours, roughly, to be purged from the human respiratory system. Hence, smoking that single cigarette on a daily basis avoids many problems with long-term lung damage.
It would seem that as I suspected, smoking one per day has a minimal effect on the lungs; but what about the arteries? New research such as this recent study of young people found that they had measurable reductions in blood flow even after two days of not smoking at all; the reductions were much more severe right after they smoked two cigarettes. As the doctor in the study says, "A reduction in responsiveness, known as impaired flow-mediated dilation, is an early sign of arterial damage that often foreshadows cardiovascular disease." The video above is part of a campaign that vividly illustrates the process of arterial damage. (Warning, squeamish readers like myself will squirm!)
So smoking one cigarette a day likely belongs in the category of activities like not exercising and eating unhealthy foods -- they increase risk of heart disease. And heart disease is the most likely cause of death for all of us Americans.
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