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Friends and family

How does smoking affect your asthma? My friend Charlie who has asthma has started smoking and I'm worried about her. | Jodhi, 13, Kick-A City

To give it to you straight - if your friend has asthma, taking up smoking is the worst thing she can do.

Charlie is increasing her risk of having an asthma attack any day now. This is because smoke irritates her airways and makes them get narrower. Smoking also makes some asthma medicines work less well. And while having asthma by itself won't damage your airways permanently, smoking will. This is because sticky deposits of tar build up in your airways.

Your friend is inhaling 4,000 types of poisonous chemicals through each cigarette - including 43 which can cause cancer. Smoking increases her blood pressure, makes her heart beat faster, and damages the system that circulates blood round her body. Carbon monoxide replaces oxygen in her blood, making it stickier, and so puts a strain on the heart.

As someone with asthma Charlie is not only risking heart disease, lung cancer, osteoporosis, bronchitis, and emphysema in the future. She's also less likely to 'grow out of' her asthma as she's smoking while she's young.

My parents both smoke and it makes my asthma bad. Can you give me some info to persuade them to give up or at least not smoke in the flat? | Skoot, 12, Kick-A City

It really needs the person who smokes to decide they want to quit - if their heart's not in it they just won't succeed. But you can give them this info so they understand how their smoke affects you and hopefully persuade them to take their ciggies outside!

Even if you don't smoke yourself, you're still at risk if you have to breathe in other people's smoke. This is called 'second-hand smoke'. Kids whose parents smoke are more likely to suffer from asthma in the first place, and the more time they spend with smokers, the more poisonous, unfiltered smoke they'll breathe in. Second-hand smoke is responsible for killing over 22,000 people in Europe each year, and it's estimated that 50 children are admitted to hospital each day suffering from the effects of other people's smoke.