The health risks of smoking cigarettes are well known, but what are the risks of smoking the cigar?
Is smoking a cigar as harmful to health or less?
According to the Cancer Institute, regular cigar smoking can severely affect health, cigar smokers often seem to develop laryngeal, lung and oesophageal cancers in particular, especially if inhaled while smoking. Recent research found that pancreatic cancer is also closely linked to cigar smoking.


The more regularly you smoke cigars and inhale the smoke into your lungs, the greater the threat to your health. Someone who smokes three to four cigars a day increases the risk of cancer by 800% compared to a non-smoker. Unfortunately, too little research has been done into the health risks of an occasional smoker at this stage. However, it seems clear that smoking cigars every day can have serious consequences.

Many people wonder whether cigars are just as addictive as cigarettes. Why, for example, do so many people seem to become addicted to cigarettes but not to cigars?
In fact, every tobacco product is physically addictive because it contains nicotine. Even chewing tobacco is addictive, simply because it contains nicotine. Many cigar smokers do not inhale deeply, but only "puff" superficially, whereas cigarette smokers tend to inhale deeply into the lungs, whereby the nicotine is absorbed more quickly. However, even superficial inhalation into the oral cavity is addictive if the smoker smokes regularly.

But if nicotine is so addictive, why do cigar smokers not seem to reach for a cigar as often as cigarette smokers?
First of all, most cigar smokers tend to "puff" rather than lung puff, which means that less nicotine is absorbed by the body. In addition, cigars are not as easy to buy as cigarettes; cigars are more of a luxury item that is kept for special occasions and used less frequently.

However, it is important to realise that smoking cigars regularly is just as physically addictive as smoking cigarettes and that any type of smoking is a serious health risk.