Smoking cigarettes has short-term health benefits

The dangers of smoking cigarettes are often greatly exaggerated while the benefits are downplayed. Now, smoking cigarettes is certainly bad for you physically overall, but the threat of diseases such as lung cancer or emphysema are made out to be worse than they actually are. For lung cancer specifically, as long as you quit smoking before your cells turn cancerous, then you are basically in no danger.
Once you quit smoking it takes only three days for the cilia in your respiratory system to start regenerating and in turn the cilia once again start to protect your lungs from harmful pollutants. The cilia normally return to their full functioning capacity about six months after quitting smoking. This shows that the effect that smoking has on your body is largely reversible, assuming that you quit before you actually have malignant cancer cells.
A study done in 2003 by Donald Massaro, et. al titled "Calorie-related rapid onset of alveolar loss, regeneration, and changes in mouse lung gene expression" was done on mice. This study was extrapolated to humans, and shows that the amount of calorie intake also has a strong effect on the lungs. When kept in conditions nearing that of starvation, the lungs show emphysema-like symptoms, but when normal eating patterns resume the lungs can take in more oxygen again and therefore, lung regeneration rapidly takes place. So if lungs can recover from emphysema-like symptoms and regenerate to normal capacity, it follows that the lungs could regenerate themselves after actual emphysema, or other ill effects from smoking.
A study printed in 2001 by Michael Houlihan, titled "Effects of smoking/nicotine on performance and event-related potentials during a short-term memory scanning task" showed that smoking cigarettes, or more specifically the nicotine in cigarettes, has a positive effect on short-term memory. A "denicotinized" cigarette and a "nicotine-yielding" cigarette were used to show the difference between the amount of nicotine ingested and the effect on short-term memory. This study basically showed that smoking shortens response time and it also positively affects event-related potentials. The response time was more greatly affected so, this shows that nicotine shortens response time by affecting response-related processes. Ellen Heber-Katz and a team of scientists working within the University of Pennsylvania have successfully engineered a mouse that can fully regenerate any of its organs except for its brain. This study basically damaged all of the organs, including the lungs, on purpose. So, the study can be extrapolated for lung damage or any damaged organ. This ability for regeneration seems to be controlled by only a few genes within the mouse. These genes almost certainly have comparable counterparts in the human body, so while this may seem to be a little more work it does give even people that are diagnosed with lung cancer hope.
Although all of these benefits can only be reaped after you quit smoking, as long as you do that in a timely manner, you should be fine. Here are some facts from past U.S. Surgeon General's Reports: Less than five days after quitting smoking it will be noticeably easier to breathe because the lungs can now hold more air. One year after quitting the risk of heart disease is reduced to one-half of the risk of a continuing smoker. Five years after quitting, the risk of a stroke is equal to that of a nonsmoker. Ten years after quitting the lung cancer death rate is half of that of continuing smokers. The risk of cancer in the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, kidney and pancreas all decrease. Fifteen years after quitting smoking the risk of coronary disease is the same as a nonsmoker.
There is hope because the negative effects of smoking are certainly reversible and even though quitting is the way for health to improve, the story is not as bleak as some people make it out to be.
There was a man who smoked unfiltered cigarettes for twenty years before quitting. Now, his lungs look as healthy as those of someone who had never smoked in his life. So enjoy smoking now; just be sure to quit before too late, so as not to miss out on the wonderful regenerative qualities of the human body.