​Women who are cigarette smokers are more likely to develop inflammatory bowel diseases, such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, than those who have never smoked a stick of cigarette.

This study explored the relationship between cigarette smoking and the odds of developing inflammatory bowel diseases, such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. A team of researchers from Harvard Medical School examined the inflammatory bowel disease risk and the smoking habits of 229,111 women recruited from the Nurses' Health Study 1 and 11 cohorts.

The researchers discovered that current and previous smokers had higher chances of developing Crohn's disease than never smokers. According to this study, the risk of developing Crohn's disease was greater among current smokers than former smokers, but the likelihood of having ulcerative colitis was higher in previous smokers than in current smokers. The elevated risk of ucerative colitis associated with previous smokers was found to persist even after 20 years of quitting smoking. The data from this study indicate that cigarette smoking may increase a woman's susceptibility of developing inflammatory bowel diseases, such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.