Smoking is like acattacking your immune system with a frontal assault.  Your immune system gets weakened immediately. Research suggests that after just one smoke, it takes a minimum of 30 days for your immune system to recover.  Smoking is a significant contributor of cell-damaging free radicals.

Smoking marijuana is reported to make your white blood cells 35-40 percent weaker (and less effective) than a non-smoker’s white blood cells.

Smoking lowers your good cholesterol while slightly increasing your bad cholesterol, and raising your blood pressure.  Smoking also increases the chance of your blood clotting, and is toxic for your heart.  Smoking is one of the major causes of lung cancer and heart disease. 

Tobacco smoke is often cited as one of the six major risk factors of heart disease that you can change or treat.  Smoking is bad in any situation, but it is especially serious if you have high blood pressure or any kind of heart ailment.  What is known about the dangerous combination of high cholesterol, high blood pressure and smoking is this:

• The more you smoke, the greater the chance to increase your cholesterol
• The longer you take to smoke a cigarette increases the amount of your cholesterol and blood pressure that will be affected
• The deeper you inhale, the more significant decrease in good cholesterol and increase in bad cholesterol
• People who inhale second-hand smoke also suffer the effects of smoking

If you want to improve your health and boost your immune system, stop smoking.  It is more important than changing your diet, reducing your stress, exercising, or taking any kind of vitamin, mineral or supplement.  Life is about making choices.  Make the right choice for you, your family and your friends.