Smoking and Heart Disease: Every Beat Counts

In most cases, the majority of people would associate cigarette smoking with lung cancer and breathing problems. But, smoking is not only responsible for these things, it is also the culprit behind heart diseases for both men and women. In fact, almost 20% of deaths in the US is caused by heart disease and they are directly related to cigarette smoking. This is basically because of the fact that smoking is one of the major causes of coronary artery disease.

The risk of a person to suffer heart attack and heart disease increases along with the number of cigarettes he/she smokes. Those who smoke have 2-4 times higher risk of having a heart disease. And smokers continue and increases their risk of heart attack when they smoke for a longer time. On the other hand, women who smoke and take birth control pills at the same time increases their risk of stroke, heart attack, and peripheral vascular disease. And the sad thing is that, smoking does not only affect the smokers. When a person smokes, the people around are also put at risk for developing various health problems, especially to the children. Environmental smoke or also known as passive or secondhand smoke affects those who are always around smokers. This causes chronic respiratory conditions, heart disease, and cancer. In addition, it has been estimated that nearly 70, 000 nonsmokers die as a result of heart disease every year due to exposure to environmental tobacco smoke.