If you have asthma, any exposure to cigarette smoke can lead to an asthma attack. Cigarettes “do not cause asthma, in the sense that people don’t become allergic to cigarette smoke,” but contact with cigarette smoke either by actively smoking or through secondhand exposure can trigger asthma symptoms, says Kenneth Rosenman, MD, chief of the division of occupational and environmental medicine at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Mich.

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