Smoking may aggravate bad nutrition among smokers, a recent research found. Researchers showed that nicotine and the toxic substances found in cigarette smoke have a huge impact on the detoxification process of the body.

• Smoking causes cell damage, which leads to diseases such as cancer, high cholesterol levels, coronary and circulatory problems, respiratory disorders and an increased risk of osteoporosis.
• Smoking drains the body of many essential vitamins and minerals, affecting your ability to absorb these vital nutrients.

Smoking causes most problems for vitamin C. Vitamin C is one of the body's main antioxidants. Antioxidants are linked to the prevention of a number of diseases.

Scientists explained that after years of media attention, many smokers understand and accepted that smoking is bad for their health and that even second-hand smoke is bad for people who are around them, especially those who live with them. But a new research found that unfortunately in many developing countries, smoking can affect the nutrition of kids who live with a smoker. That's because people exposed to someone else's smoke are at increased risk for a range of health problems.

But some of scientists reported that there's a financial risk as well. They explained that in many poor countries, in order to light up, smokers spend an important amount of money for to pay for cigarettes.

Economist Steven Block learned this by examining data from Indonesia about the household expenses of smokers. He said that he found that tobacco is extremely large consumption in those households where there is a smoker.

Mr. Block said: "The percentage of men in Indonesia that smokes is over 60 percent. A firm number of households have one smoker, and it turns out that even among very poor households in rural central Java... when there is a smoker in the household, they spent approximately 10 percent of their household budget on tobacco products."

Block also used data collected by the nonprofit Helen Keller International a group that gathers information about household consumption patterns all over the world every few months.

He found that the data shows the comparatively high percentage of money spent on tobacco held true in the poorest families where food budgets take up between 60 to 70 percent of total income.

"For them to start allocating 10 percent of their household budget to cigarettes implies some pretty severe trades off in terms of other things like food, perhaps housing, healthcare, education," Block added.

Block also observed that the children are slightly shorter on average in those households. He supposes that probably because of less money needed to be spent on groceries, and because of less money for highly nutritious food that can help children grow.