Health Risk : Smoking and Heart Diseases

There are several causes of heart disease and smoking is one of them. And, there are many diseases which can develop from smoking and heart disease is one of them. Cigarette smoking is actually a major cause of heart attack, stroke and peripheral vascular disease.

Peripheral vascular disease refers to a range of abnormal conditions that affect the veins outside your heart, generally obstructing flow of blood in arteries. Smoking is very famous like a celebrity star, in different ways. In exchange from the pleasure of smoking, your life is the price you pay.

Types Of Heart Diseases

There are several types of heart disease, but the major ones are the atherosclerosis, coronary, rheumatic, congenital, myocarditis, angina, and arrythmia heart disease. Although heart disease can be deadly, it is also preventable.

The most basic and simple ways to prevent heart disease is to exercise regularly, eat heart-healthy diet, maintain healthy weight, avoid smoking, and have regular health screenings. It is never too late for anybody to change lifestyles and practice healthy habits for the betterment ones welfare.

Smoking and heart disease may not come hand in hand because not everyone with heart disease used to smoke, but we can’t ignore the fact that smokers may develop heart disease in a latter time or any other serious disease for that matter.

Chemicals In Tobacco Smoke Are The Main Culprits

Smoking kills more and more people each year and almost 40 % of those who died from smoking die from heart and blood vessel disease. Tobacco smoke contains thousands of chemicals in which many of them are poisonous.

Nicotine in tobacco smoke can increase blood pressure causing the heart to work harder. Carbon monoxide replaces oxygen in your blood. Smoking adds to the obstruction of the arteries which can lead to heart attack and other heart-related conditions.

And, smokers have greater risk of death from coronary heart disease compare to non-smokers. Aren’t these reasons enough for you to quit smoking? If at earlier time you stop smoking and heart disease is what you want to evade from, then, you must value your life so much.

Health Effects of Smoking

"Smoking-related diseases claim an estimated 438,000 American lives each year, including those affected indirectly, such as babies born prematurely due to prenatal maternal smoking and victims of “secondhand” exposure to tobacco’s carcinogens..."

Let’s take a look at the health effects of smoking i.e. what actually happens inside your body each time you light up. Think about how quickly tobacco smoke can produce harmful effects. The following are some of the health risk of smoking.

Your Eyes, Nose, & Throat

The health effects of smoking can be found on your eyes, nose and throat. Within a few seconds of your first puff, irritating gases such as formaldehyde, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and others begin to work on sensitive membranes of your eyes, nose, and throat.

Your eyes water, your nose runs, and your throat is irritated. If you continue smoking, these irritating gases will contribute to your smoker’s cough. Continued smoking produces abnormal thickening in the membranes lining your throat, accompanied by cellular changes that resemble those that occur in throat cancer.

Lungs

The health effects of smoking are very dangerous with regards to lungs. Continued exposure can entirely paralyze the lungs’ natural cleansing process. (Smoking and Lung Cancer)

• Your respiratory rate increases, forcing your lungs to work harder.
• Irritating gases produce chemical injury to the tissues of your lungs. This speeds up the production of mucus and leads to an increased tendency to cough up sputum.
• Excess mucus serves as a breeding ground for a variety of bacteria and viruses. You become more prone to colds, flu, bronchitis, and other respiratory infections. And if you do come down with an infection, your body is less able to fight it, because smoking impairs the ability of the white blood cells to fight invading organisms.
• The lining of your bronchi begins to thicken, predisposing you to cancer. Most lung cancers arise in the bronchial lining.
• Smoke weakens the free-roving scavenger cells that remove foreign particles from the air sacs of the lungs. Continued smoke exposure adversely affects elastin, which is the enzyme that keeps your lungs flexible, predisposing you to emphysema.
• Many of the compounds you inhale are deposited as a layer of sticky tar on the lining of your throat and bronchi and in the delicate air sacs of your lungs. A pack-a-day smoker pours about a pint - 16 ounces - of tar into his or her lungs each year. This tar is rich in cancer producing chemicals.