Smoking Hurts Teen Girls Bones

Smoking has always been something that teenagers have done. The effects of smoking have always been obvious such as lung cancer, yellow teeth, etc, but a new study shows that smoking can actually effect bone loss and osteoporosis in teenage girls. Osteoporosis is a loss of bone density that predisposes people to fractures and leaves many elderly people, especially women, hunched over. Bones regenerate over ones lifetime, but the teenage years particularly are crucial to develop a strong skeleton. 

Lorah Dorn, a developmental psychologist and pediatric nurse practitioner at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, recruited 262 healthy girls ages 11 to 17. Each of the girls answered questions about their health habits and would return three times a year for bone density tests. Girls who regularly reported smoking regularly had shown nearly flat rates of bone density growth. Non smokers showed normal growth of the bones.

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