If you smoke, you’re damaging your body. Smokers are more susceptible to many life-threatening conditions, from cancer and lung disease to heart disease and diabetes. And tobacco smoke is more toxic to women than men because they have smaller lungs. “So the same level of smoking has a more negative impact on them,” says Zab Mosenifar, M.D., medical director of the Women’s Guild Lung Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. “All those toxic properties are concentrated over smaller areas,” he explains. Your best bet? Stop smoking. But until you’ve set a quit date, you’ll need to get certain screenings and lab tests more frequently than nonsmokers, doctors say. Ask your physician to look for warning signs of smoking-related diseases during checkups, says pulmonary (lung) specialist Neil Schachter, M.D., professor of medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.
Fasting blood glucose level, which measures blood sugar when you haven’t eaten in eight hoursOral glucose tolerance, which measures blood sugar levels after you drink a sugary liquidHemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), which shows average blood glucose levels over three months
