The Effects of Smoking on Bladder Health
Most people associate smoking with lung cancer and respiratory disease, but smoking can affect other major organs including your bladder. But how? More on that below. First, a few statistics:
40 million U.S. adults still smoke despite widespread awareness of negative health consequences.
According to the American Cancer Society, smokers are 3 times more likely to get bladder cancer.
Former smokers are two times more likely to develop bladder cancer than those who never smoked.
Those are some eye-opening numbers.
How Does Smoking Affect My Bladder?
As stated above, the public discourse around cigarette smoking usually focuses heavily on the damage it causes the lungs. And so it should. But these same toxins are responsible for a staggering 50% of all bladder cancer cases, so it would be foolish to gloss over the negative effect smoking has on the urinary tract organs.
When you smoke, there’s a laundry list of toxic chemicals your body absorbs each time you inhale. And at some point, your body needs to expel those toxins, and it does so partially via the gastrointestinal and urinary systems.
Urine stored in the bladder (sometimes for hours at a time) is concentrated. That means the bladder itself is exposed to very high concentrations of the same toxins you inhale with each cigarette.
Chemical Soup
So what exactly are these chemicals? According to the American Cancer Society, the following chemicals can be found in cigarettes:
Nicotine (a well-known, highly addictive substance)
Hydrogen cyanide
Formaldehyde
Lead
Ammonia
Radioactive elements including polonium-210
Benzene
Carbon monoxide
Tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs)
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)
This list can only be described as shocking. Arsenic and cyanide are both poisons and formaldehyde is the substance used to store cadavers long-term.
Urine containing a concentrated amount of these cancer-causing toxins can sit for hours before the bladder is voided. It’s a sobering idea because toxins of this nature can change the cells of the bladder lining and can even inhibit DNA cell repair.
Studies have shown that vaping can also trigger cancer-related damage to bladder tissue, so it is not necessarily ‘safer’ than smoking a regular cigarette.
The bottom line? The number one way to reduce your risk of bladder cancer is to stop smoking altogether.
What Are Some Common Signs of Bladder Cancer?
Because symptoms can present as relatively mild, some patients don’t realize they have cancer, and so are diagnosed in later stages of the disease. Blood in the urine (hematuria) is the most common early symptom of bladder cancer, but other symptoms can include:
UTI-like symptoms (Urinary Tract Infection)
Recurrent bladder infections
Frequent or burning urination
Unexplained pain (usually in the flank area, abdomen, or pelvis)
When Should I See My Doctor?
The good news is that bladder cancer is highly treatable in its early stages. We recommend patients see a doctor immediately upon experiencing any of these symptoms. Even if the cause is something relatively innocuous, like a UTI, it’s best to know so it can be treated.
If your doctor suspects a more serious underlying condition, they may perform a Transurethral Resection of a Bladder Tumor (TURBT). This allows a surgeon to place a scope through the urethra into the bladder to remove tumors from the bladder wall.
This procedure allows a urologist to perform a biopsy of the bladder wall to make a definitive diagnosis of cancer.
The physicians at Norman Urology are experts in this field and are trained to detect and treat bladder cancer early on.
If you feel you may be at risk for bladder cancer, why not schedule an appointment with us today?