Whats more dangrous to your health:smoking or drinking?

Question

take a person who smokes X amount of packs a day and a person that drinks X amount of beer,whiskey, etc a day. who would be in worst shape? and plus drinking and driving is bad but smoking and driving isn't bad. but there is 2nd hand smoking. which is worst?

Answer 1

Smoking.

It's impossible to compare the two directly in the terms you describe. Your "X" amount of smoking would be measured in, say, the number of cigarettes or the weight of tobacco smoked while "X" amount of drinking would be measured in milligrams or units of alcohol. The two cannot be directly compared because you are measuring entirely different things.

Based purely on the number of deaths each year from smoking-related and drinking-related causes, smoking is the clear "winner"

Diseases caused by smoking include:-
cancer (lung, mouth and just about everywhere else!) (about 87% of all lung cancer deaths are caused by smoking)
emphysema (the little air pockets in your lungs that get oxygen into your body get damaged so you can't breathe)
heart failure
reduced immune response to infections
it can even make you infertile

Check out the list here:-
http://www.ash.org.uk/html/factsheets/html/fact02.html

This gets worse when you consider the effects of secondary smoking, particularly on children whose parents smoke.

Drinking alcohol in small amounts is considered by many to be beneficial whilst no level of smoking is viewed as in any way good for you. In fact you have to drink quite a lot and over a long period of time to suffer any serious ill-effects:-
liver disease
heart problems
damage to the brain
digestive problems

The main secondary effect of drinking are the deaths caused by drunk drivers who sometimes manage to kill innocent people although at least a number of them do us the service of wiping themselves out as well.

Around 114,000 people in the UK die each year from smoking-related causes, which is about one fifth of all deaths, compared with around 5,000 from alcoholic liver disease.

Each year around 5 million people die from smoking worldwide - the only other way to kill a similar number of people would be to start a world war!!

Answer 2

smoking is way more dangerous then drinking, though it is true that drinking and driving can cause an accident and you could die, but you can also die from smoking, expectualy 2nd hand smoking and pot is never good either, i'd have to say that it's about equal for how dangerous each is if it's not equal then it would have to be smoking because also you have to watch out when your smoking around people with asthma cause smoke isn't good to them, my little brother has asthma and smoke can kill him, so you'd never know when your smoking around them, and with each time you smoke the worst shape your heart will be in, but then when you drink, it is true you can die if you drink and drive, but you won't die if you continue drinking, but if you smoke that much a day you will be sure to die so that's worst!

Answer 3

it depends on how much you do each... drinking can destroy a liver... and smoking can destroy your lungs and your throat... I would say as long as you do both in moderation they arent bad... but if you do both a lot, then youre destined to get something... Thats dancing with the devil... But, as long as you do both things in moderation and not on a daily basis, or a chain smoker type thing... then one isnt worse than the other... theyre both bad for you, but sometimes drinking can be good for you, if you just drink a little a day... and smoking is never good for you... smoke just isnt supposed to be in your lungs... just take care of yourself & keep track of how much you do and what youre doing to your body

Answer 4

They are both pretty bad, although alcohol only really becomes a seriosuly problem when you binge drink. Smoking is a problem after one cigarette.

Also smoking is incredibly invasive to everyone else around you, where as drinking (unless you become a drunk idiot) is far less so.

Answer 5

Drinking, because besides killing millions of brain cells, it's messing up your liver and other organs in your body. You can also drink too much and have alcohol poisoning, and drinking is much more addictive. You can't really OD on smoking cigarettes, also, the death from smoking cigarettes is gradual and painless, if even there is one.

Answer 6

I know that both are bad and they have really bad consequences. (liver damage, lung cancer, etc...) But I really think that smoking is worse because it can cause far more damage than drinking. The best thing is not to start doing any of them, and to stop if you started even if it's hard.

Answer 7

after working for over 20 years in ERs, I can safely tell you that drinking kills the young and smoking kills the middle aged and anyone who lives longer than 60 that drinks and smokes will probably live to be 100.
drinking is much much much more dangerous, drunk people get in more accidents and fights, make bad personal choices, are raped, abused, and crash their cars

Answer 8

Drinking is worse than smoking. Liver is abused in drinking and lungs is abused in smoking. Alcohol effects brain whereas nicotine make brain calm and alert. Productivity will be higher in smokers than in drinkers. Alcoholics will stray from society and smokers can still function their best.

Answer 9

actually, smoking can affect your driving as it affects your judgment (to a small degree) and you get all jumpy without it (that is only if you use it). and what these poeople are saying about alchahol being as bad is NOT TRUE. only if your are an alchaholic. doctors actually state that one glass of red wine a day is GOOD for your HEART and STOMACH. but drinking more than on glass every few hours is NOT recemmended.........
defenately smoking is worst.

Answer 10

smoking does more damage.

drinking will hurt your liver.

smoke will stick to your throat, nasal cavity, and your lungs and the tounge and gums, obviously the teeth as well and it can destroy all of those things.

drinking will mainly just hurt your liver. with acception to excessive drinking and if you are throwing up. then it is probably equal because your stomache acids will eat away at all the things i listed above for smoking (excluding the lungs) and it will decay your teeth too if it happens lots.