Smoking a few cigarettes a day can also worsen your lung health Smoking a few cigarettes a day is as bad for your lungs as smoking two packs of cigarettes. The study pooled the results of six population-based studies from the United States, which included more than 25,000 adults. The study found that people’s lung function – that is, the lung capacity to breathe – was almost as bad for people who smoked 5 cigarettes a day or less as for people who smoked 30 cigarettes or more. Most people’s lung function declines as they get older. However, smoking has long been recognized as a major cause of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), in which inflammation and narrowing of the airways occur in chronic inflammation. This makes people prone to breathlessness and persistent coughing. Studies have found that lung function declines more rapidly in smokers compared to never-smokers. The longer you smoked, the worse your lung function became, and even “light” smokers followed heavy smokers. Even after quitting, lung function continued to decline in smokers who quit, but not as fast as in those who continued to smoke. So the study suggests that “there is no safe level of tobacco smoke” and that people who want to avoid lung disease should stop smoking altogether. It was funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. Conclusion: The study shows that smoking at any level is harmful and that the best way to protect lung health is to stop smoking altogether. Some people think that smoking less, or just a few cigarettes, does not cause much damage to the lungs, but in fact light smoking causes loss of lung function and accounts for 68% of the rate of heavy smoking, so it’s actually not as little damage as you might think. And the risks of smoking are well established and well documented, not only in COPD, but in a wide range of cancers, cardiovascular disease and many other chronic diseases. So the best way to reduce the harmful effects is to quit smoking altogether, and the sooner you stop, the better.