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Smoking and Asthma

Medically reviewed by: Elana Pearl Ben-Joseph, MD

How Does Smoking Affect Asthma?

Smoking is bad for everyone, but especially for people who have asthma. Smoking causes coughing and wheezing and makes it hard to breathe — the same problems that happen during an asthma flare-up. So if you add smoke to lungs that are already irritated, you have big-time breathing trouble.

If people have asthma and they smoke, they will probably:

  • have more asthma flare-ups, with coughing and wheezing
  • need more asthma medicine because it won't work as well
  • visit the doctor and emergency room more often
  • miss fun stuff they want to do because of asthma flare-ups