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.

How Smoking Contribute to Heart Disease?

The nicotine that is highly present in every cigarette smoke causes heart diseases by:

• Decreasing oxygen supply to the heart
• Increasing heart rate and blood pressure
• Increas in blood clot
• Damaging the cells that line the coronary arteries and blood vessels

How Quitting Can Help?

After knowing how harmful is smoking to you and to those around and near you, below are the ways how quitting the habit can be of great help. If you quit, you will:

• Prolong life
• Reduce the risk of diseases (heart disease, high blood pressure, heart attack, throat cancer, lung cancer, ulcer, gum disease, emphysema, etc.)
• Feel more healthy. After you quit, you will not cough as much while increasing your stamina
• Look a lot better. Quitting helps prevent wrinkles and stained teeth. You will also improve your skin.
• Improved sense of smell and taste
• Save money

When it comes to quitting, there is no such thing as “one-way” that would work for everyone. If you want to quit, you need to be ready both mentally and emotionally. At the same time, you have to realize that you are doing such mainly for yourself, and not just for anyone else or to please your friends and family, though having a good and strong support group is helpful. You always need to bear in mind that for you to be able to save others, you need to save yourself first. Quitting takes a lot of will and dedication to make it a success. But what is important is for you to realize that there are a lot of ways to do it successfully and alternatives are available to make the quitting process a lot easy.