Top 10 Health Reasons to Quit Smoking

1. You'll drastically cut your risk of developing lung cancer and other cancers. The cancer that everyone associates with smoking is lung cancer. Indeed, smoking is what makes lung cancer the top cause of cancer death in the nation, so the top reason to quit is to avoid this grim diagnosis. In addition, studies have shown stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer and other types of cancer are more common or more deadly among smokers.

2. You'll cough less and breathe easier. Besides doing damage to the lungs that can lead to cancer, smoking hurts the lung's fragile tissues in other ways. This can lead to an uncontrollable cough - so common it's easily recognizable as "smoker's cough" - and other breathing problems as the lungs struggle to cope with all the chemicals in tobacco smoke. These symptoms can signal even worse problems (see reason No. 3). Solution? Nip the problem in the bud by quitting.

3. You'll be less likely to develop chronic lung diseases like emphysema and bronchitis. Over time, the lung damage and inflammation caused by smoking often leads to chronic breathing problems far more serious than a wheeze or a cough. Lungs that are constantly irritated by tobacco smoke often start producing too much mucus, which narrows the breathing passages and makes it harder to breathe. This condition, known as chronic bronchitis, can worsen into chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD. Another chronic breathing disease linked almost exclusively to smoking is emphysema, which is caused by the death of lung cells and which not only limits the amount of oxygen a person can take in, but also reduces your ability to get rid of carbon dioxide.

4. You'll decrease your risk of heart disease and heart attack. The fact that smoking can hurt the heart and the blood vessels still surprises many people, even though these effects have been known for years. Scientists are still trying to figure out exactly what's going on, and how the chemicals in cigarette smoke interact with the blood, heart and circulatory system. But study after study shows that smokers have far more heart attacks, high blood pressure readings and other cardiovascular problems than non-smokers. The risk of most of these life-threatening diseases, though, goes down after people stop smoking.

5. You'll be less likely to have a stroke. Two times less likely, in fact. Strokes are either caused by a blood clot that gets stuck in the blood vessels of the brain, cutting off blood supply, or by the bursting of a weakened blood vessel in the brain. Either way, part of the brain dies immediately, and so can the person who is having the stroke. Most stroke survivors live out their lives paralyzed or severely weakened. Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the U.S. (after heart disease and cancer) and the top cause of disability, but since you can cut your risk in half by kicking the habit, why not do it?

6. If you're a man, you'll be less likely to experience erectile dysfunction. This is one effect that most men don't know about, but if they did, they'd probably get more serious about quitting. Men who smoke have a 50 percent increased risk of developing erectile dysfunction than men who don't smoke, even after you eliminate all the other medical problems that cause erectile dysfunction. The easiest way for a man to reduce his chances of problems in the bedroom is to throw away his cigarettes.

7. If you're a woman, you'll be less likely to have fertility problems, or give birth to a premature or low birth weight baby. Do you want to get pregnant and have a healthy baby? Stop smoking now, before you even start trying to conceive. Women who smoke have an increased risk of problems with fertility, increased risk of pre-term deliveries, increased risk of having a low birth weight baby, and an increased risk of infant death. These hazards related to smoking and pregnancy may also give your baby a higher chance of birth defects, and lifelong health and learning problems.

8. Quitting will help your personal appearance, by reducing bad breath, yellowed teeth and fingernails, premature skin aging and early hair loss. Not only does smoking hurt your inner organs, it can also harm your outer appearance. The chemicals in tobacco can stain your teeth and hands, and alter the conditions in your mouth to cause bad breath. They can also accelerate the hair loss, wrinkles and loss of skin elasticity that come with older age anyway. It's like putting your body on fast-forward - you'll look and feel older than you are. And that fits right in with the fact that you'll also probably die sooner than you would have if you didn't smoke. If you quit now, you can probably halt many of the effects smoking has on your appearance, as well as your health. And you'll probably smell better, too.

9. If you quit, you'll spare your spouse or partner the dangers of second-hand smoke. Smoking at home means that anyone who lives with you gets exposed to the chemicals in tobacco smoke, and breathes them in every day. And while the precise risk is not fully understood, there's compelling evidence that this can affect their health in the long term.

10. If you quit, you'll keep your kids from getting sick from second-hand smoke. Adults who live with smokers have it hard enough, but what about children? No matter how much you try to stay away from your kids when you smoke, you're probably putting them at increased risk of several health conditions. Children who live in a household with a smoker have a two- to four-times-greater risk of asthma as children who live in a non-smoking household. If you stop smoking, your children have less risk of developing this and other medical problems, from coughs and flu to ear infections and crib death.