Smoking and heart disease

There's nothing very pleasant about heart disease - it's ugly and vicious.  If you have this condition you might have difficulty breathing, suffer from chest pain, or find you lack energy.  Put simply, it can interfere with the enjoyment of your entire life.  There are still people who don't know that smoking can increase your chances of some kind of heart disease.  Just what is about smoking that leads to problems with the heart?  Here are some facts about smoking and how it can lead to significant heart damage.

Although many people experience a temporary feeling of relaxation as smoking, the feeling doesn't last.  What actually happens is that you breathe in nearly 4,000 chemicals, directly into your cardio-vascular system.  One of the best known of these is nicotine.  Nicotine is known to help create the conditions for high blood pressure, as the carbon monoxide content of nicotine can replace a portion of the oxygen transported by the blood.  Nicotine also acts on the brain, which in turn stimulates the heartbeat rate.

The accumulation of tar in the lungs and arteries seriously impede the ability of the heart to supply blood to all parts of the body.  The harder the heart must work to keep your body properly supplied, the less it is able to cope with decreased oxygen content created by smoking.  This can lead to conditions that favourable for the development of blood clots, which can lead to coronary failure.

All in all, smoking can increase the chances of some sort of cardiovascular problems, increasing with every cigarrette you smoke.  Fortunately, there is always the option of ditching the cigarettes and kicking the habit!  Although some people believe if they have ever smoked that you cannot do anything about the damage, they are wrong.  Even for someone who has smoked for over twenty years, it has been demonstrated that a period of three to five years of not smoking will reduce the chances of developing heart disease or lung.

The choice to give up tobacco and adopt a healthy lifestyle means that you have removed one of the main causes of cardiovascular disease from your life.  This also means that your blood contains an appropriate quantity of oxygen and your heart does not have to work so hard for the supply of blood throughout your body.  The chances of developing blood clots also decreases significantly, which in turn, reduce the chances of triggering a myocardial infarction.

If your lifestyle and eating habits make you a good candidate for a diseased heart, start the changes now - it is never too late.  This includes eliminating the use of cigarettes or any other form of tobacco today, right now.  Heart disease can be fatal so don't take unnecessary risks.