Smoking and Your Digestive System

continued University of
Pittsburgh
Medical Center Information
for Patients S moking and Your Digestive System Dangers of smoking Each year 400,000 people in the United States
die from cigarette smoking. Smoking cigarettes
causes life-threatening diseases. Lung cancer,
emphysema (EM-fuh-ZEE-muh), and heart
disease are some of these diseases. Smoking
also causes digestive illnesses. How smoking harms your
digestive system Smoking affects all parts of the body. When
you smoke, changes take place in your digestive
system. The digestive system converts foods
into the nutrients the body needs to live. You
can have serious problems when your digestive
system changes. For example, smoking helps cause heartburn
and stomach (peptic) ulcers. Smoking makes
your liver less able to handle drugs and alcohol.
Smoking gives you greater chances of getting
Crohns (CROW-nz) disease and gall stones.
The digestive problems that smoking causes
are enough reason to quit smoking. Heartburn Heartburn is very common. More than 60
million Americans have heartburn at least once
a month. About 15 million get heartburn daily. You get heartburn when acid juices from your
stomach back up into your food pipe. The
name of the food pipe is the esophagus (ee-
SOFF-uh-gus). The esophagus runs from your
mouth to your stomach. Normally, a valve at the lower end of the esophagus keeps acid
from leaving the stomach. When you smoke,
the valve gets weaker and allows stomach acid
to flow backward into your esophagus. This
flowing backward is called reflux (REE-flux). Smoking also seems to move some bile salts
from the intestine into the stomach. As a result,
stomach acid is even more harmful. In addition,
smoking can injure the esophagus itself. Your
esophagus is then more easily damaged by
reflux acid. Peptic ulcer A peptic (PEP-tik) ulcer is an open sore in the
lining of the stomach. A peptic ulcer can also
occur in the first part of the small intestine,
which is called the duodenum (doo-AH-den-
um). Smoking and ulcers are related. Smoking
seems to be one of several factors that work
together to form ulcers. For example, smoking
may increase your risk of infection with the
bacteria that cause some peptic ulcers. Stomach acid also plays a big role in producing
ulcers. Normally, the food we eat decreases
the harmful effects, or buffers, most acid in
the stomach. Some acid remains unbuffered
when it enters the small intestine. There, so-
dium (SO-dee-um) bicarbonate (bye-CAR-
bun-ate) from the pancreas (PAN-kree-us)
buffers the acid. Some studies show that
smoking reduces the amount of bicarbonate
the pancreas makes. Acid then does not get
buffered in the small intestine. Other studies
show that smoking may increase the amount
of acid in the stomach. For help in finding a doctor or health service that suits your needs, call the UPMC Referral Service
at 412-647-UPMC (8762) or 1-800-533-UPMC (8762). University of
Pittsburgh
Medical Center Information
for Patients The University of Pitts-
burgh Medical Center is
an equal opportunity em-
ployer. Policy prohibits
discrimination or harass-
ment on the basis of race,
color, religion, national
origin, ancestry, sex, age,
marital status, familial
status, sexual orientation,
disability, or veteran sta-
tus. Further, UPMC will
continue to support and
promote equal employment
opportunity, human dig-
nity, and racial, ethnic,
and cultural diversity. This
policy applies to admissions,
employment, and access to
and treatment in UPMC
programs and activities.
This commitment is made
by UPMC in accordance
with federal, state, and/or
local laws and regulations. This information is not
intended to be used as a
substitute for professional
medical advice, diagnosis,
or treatment. You should
not rely entirely on this
information for your health
care needs. Ask your own
doctor or health care pro-
vider any specific medical
questions that you have. Pittsburgh, PA, USA www.upmc.com

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