Cigarette Chemicals & Your Body

Nicotine gets you addicted to cigarettes, but it’s not the most harmful ingredient in a cigarette. In fact, cigarette smoke contains over 4000 chemicals and at least 69 of them cause cancer. These cigarette ingredients also speed up the ageing process.

When you use NICORETTE^® instead of smoking, you save yourself from the chemicals in cigarettes:

Acetone: a flammable solvent used in nail polish remover
Arsenic: a poison
Benzene: found in rubber cement
Formaldehyde: the base of many embalming fluids
Lead: used in batteries
Tar: a material for paving roads

These chemicals can have the following effects on your body.

Lungs and Cells

Tar is deposited in your lungs and contains chemicals called carcinogens, which encourage the development of cancer cells in your body.
You’re exposed to chemicals such as benzene and formaldehyde that have been linked to a range of different cancers, such as leukaemia and kidney cancer.

Skin

Acetaldehyde, one of the chemicals in cigarette smoke, attacks the connective tissue holding your skin together and makes your face sag and wrinkle.
Your body is sapped of vitamin C, an antioxidant which plays a crucial role in the production of collagen – a natural protein vital for keeping skin healthy and supple.
Your circulation suffers because oxygen isn’t pumped around your blood vessels as effectively as in a non-smoker, giving you a dull complexion.

Teeth

The toxic chemicals in cigarette tobacco create sticky ‘tar’ residue all over your teeth.
Because smoking reduces the amount of saliva in your mouth, your teeth become stained and discoloured.
You’re at an increased risk of periodontitis – or gum disease, which causes inflammation around the teeth leading to swollen gums, bad breath, and in severe cases may even cause your teeth to fall out.