Harmful Effects of Smoking: Heart Disease

The American Heart Association says that roughly one fifth of all the deaths in the Unites States per year are caused by cigarette smoking. Often when we think of the harmful effects of smoking we immediately think of cancer, but smoking is the cause of a significant amount of heart disease and stroke, too.

Smoking causes the following to occur in the body:

• Decreased oxygen to the heart
• Decreased ability to exercise
• Decreased HDL Cholesterol (The “good” cholesterol)
• Increased blood pressure and pulse
• Damage to coronary arteries
• Increased risk of heart attack
• Increased risk of peripheral artery disease
• Increased tendency for blood clotting (stroke)

Smoking causes a build up a fatty tissue inside the coronary arteries. This puts extra strain on the heart (called angina). Once an artery becomes sufficiently narrow, a heart attack often happens.

The same thing happens to the other blood vessels in your body, specifically those going to the arms, legs, and brain. This greatly increases the risk of stroke.

The more you smoke, the greater the risk.

Don’t think, however, that there is a safe amount of smoking. The only safe way to smoke is to become a non-smoker.

Don’t let this get you down, though. Even if you have smoked for a number of years, your body starts to heal the moment you quit. In just hours after quitting the amount of oxygen reaching your cells increases. You start feeling better and also getting your wind back.

Even if you are in your sixties, you can add four years average life expectancy by quitting.

What’s more, the years you add will be quality years, not years spent in hospitals recovering from major surgeries for heart disease and cancers.

If you want to quit, but don’t know how, then take a look at the other links in this website to find a plan that might work for you.

Remember, nicotine is a highly addictive drug. It’s not going to give up its hold on you easily. So, you have to 1) decide you’re really going to quit this time, and 2) don’t quit trying to quit until you’ve actually quit!

(I hope that last sentence made sense. :) )

What I mean is your life and the lives of those you love are at stake. Please quit! Just keep trying until you find a way to quit.

The average smoker who successfully quits sometimes has to try five or six times.

So, keep at it until it happens!

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