Smoking Diseases & Health
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Cigarette smoking is a major cause of heart and blood vessel disease.
Should you be concerned? Yes! Don't take cardiovasculardiseases (CVD) lightly. Each year more than 925,000 Americans die of heartattack, stroke, high blood pressure and other cardiovascular disorders. That'smore than two of every five deaths, a life every 34 seconds. And nearly 60million Americans have some form of these potentially lethal diseases.
The fact is that more than 400,000 deaths in the UnitedStates every year result from smoking. About 43 percent of them are due tocardiovascular diseases.
All information on Smoking and Heart Diseasecontained in these pages is from the American Heart Association.
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YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE A BABY--- AND YOU SMOKE
What better time to quit? And for two very good reasons you and your baby.
Pregnancy can be a time of joy and stress. It may seem overwhelming to thinkabout quitting now. Even if someone you know may have smoked during herpregnancy and had a problem free delivery and a healthy baby, quitting stilloffers you and your baby the best chance for a fresh start.
QUITTING IS HARD
Maybe you've tried to quit before. And even now, it isn't easy giving upsomething that is so much part of what you do every day. But studies show thatthe more times you try to quit, the more likely it will work out the next time.The stress of quitting won't harm your baby either. So whether you are in your firsttrimester --- or your last --- it is still the best decision you can make forboth of you.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
Here are a few steps to help you:
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Smoking or being exposed to high amounts of environmental tobaccosmoke causes several temporary effects on a person's heart and blood vessels.The nicotine in the smoke temporarily increases the blood pressure, the heartrate, the amount of blood pumped by the heart and the blood flow in the heart'sarteries. It also causes the arteries in the arms and legs to constrict andnarrow.
Smoking doesn't cause high blood pressure, but it doesincrease the risk of developing CVD in people with high blood pressure. Smokingalso speeds up the development of malignant hypertension, a very dangerous formof high blood pressure.
Nicotine isn't the only bad element in cigarette smoke.Carbon monoxide gets in the blood and reduces the oxygen available to the heartand to all other parts of the body. Cigarette smoke also causes the platelets(clotting agents) in the blood to become sticky and cluster, shortens theirsurvival, reduces clotting time, and makes blood thicker. All these effects harma person's cardiovascular system.
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Arteriosclerosis occurs when fatty deposits build up on theinner walls of the arteries. This causes them to narrow and become less elastic.When this happens the heart must work harder to pump blood through the narrowedchannels. Clogged arteries are a major cause of heart attack and stroke.
Hardening of the heart's arteries (coronary arteries) andof the main artery (aorta) occurs more often in smokers than in nonsmokers. Andwhen it occurs, it tends to be more severe in smokers.
Along with cigarette smoking, high blood cholesterol is amajor risk factor for heart and blood vessel disease. In both men and women,smoking interacts with high blood cholesterol to markedly increase the risk forCVD. In other words, people who smoke and have high cholesterol levels have ahigher risk of CVD than the sum of each risk factor by itself. Also, smokers aremore likely to have lower levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol("good cholesterol") and higher levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL)cholesterol ("bad cholesterol").
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Cigarette smoke, high blood pressure, high levels ofcholesterol in the blood and physical inactivity are the four major risk factorsfor heart attack that can be changed. People who already have high bloodpressure, high blood cholesterol (or both) and who smoke cigarettes increasetheir risk of heart attack even more. The more cigarettes a person smokes, thegreater their risk of heart attack.
People who smoke a pack of cigarettes a day have more thantwice the risk of heart attack of people who've never smoked. And people whosmoke two or more packs have an even higher risk.
Smokers who have a heart attack have less chance ofsurviving than nonsmokers. And people who keep smoking after a heart attackincrease the chances that they'll have a second attack.
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Angina pectoris is chest pain. It occurs when the heartmuscle doesn't get enough oxygen during exertion. Smoking cigarettes reduces theamount of oxygen to the heart muscle. At the same time it makes the heart beatfaster, which increases its demand for oxygen. Thus, when smokers with anginapectoris exert themselves, they get chest pain sooner than they normally would.Often this means that they must restrict their activity more than they otherwisewould need to.
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The earlier a person starts smoking the greater the riskto his or her health in the future. Among teenagers, the risk of heart attack inlater life seems remote. But even teenagers can suffer coughing, lower staminaand a fast heart rate from smoking. These conditions will worsen over time andcan develop into heart disease or chronic lung disease if a person keepssmoking.
Most people start smoking as teenagers. In fact, it'sestimated that 90 percent of all smokers start smoking before age 21.
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Smoking is the main cause of chronic bronchitis andemphysema. These chronic lung diseases put more pressure on the heart and --when heart disease is present -- may result in heart failure.
Second-hand smoke is also a problem especially forchildren. Eash year it causes up to 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections(such as pneumonia and bronchitis) in children less than one and a half yearsold. Up to 15,000 of them must be hospitalized.
In addition, mothers who smoke 10 or more cigarettes a daycan cause up to 26,000 new cases of asthma among their children each year.
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Women who take the Pill and also smoke cigarettes increasetheir risk of heart attack several times. Smoking cigarettes and taking birthcontrol pills also increases the risk of peripheral vascular disease and stroke.
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No matter how much or how long you've smoked, when youquit smoking your risk of heart disease starts to drop. Three years afterquitting, your risk of death from heart attack is about the same as if you'dnever smoked.
It's important to stop smoking before the signs of heartdisease appear. Once they show up, even if you quit smoking your risk of heartattack won't return to normal -- although it will be lower.
Don't wait until you have heart disease to quit. Quitwhile you're ahead. STOP SMOKING NOW!
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No cigarettes are safe. Scientists have found no evidencethat smoking low-tar and low-nicotine cigarettes reduces the risk of coronaryheart disease.
Many smokers who've switched to low-tar and low-nicotinecigarettes smoke more cigarettes and inhale more deeply to make up for thereduced nicotine. This can create new problems, because tar and nicotine aren'tthe only harmful substances in tobacco smoke. By inhaling more deeply, smokerstake in more of the other harmful substances and may increase their risk ofdisease.
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Smokers aren't the only ones affected by cigarette smoke.Environmental tobacco smokes (ETS), also called passive smoke or second-handsmoke, is a serious health hazard for nonsmokers, especially children.
ETS Contains more than 4,000 chemicals and at least 40known carcinogens. The nicotine in the smoke causes the heart rate and bloodpressure to increase. Cigarette smoke also increases blood clotting and damagesthe layer of cells that line the coronary arteries and all other blood vessels.Also, nonsmokers who have high blood pressure or high blood cholesterol have aneven greater risk of developing heart diseases when they're exposed tosecond-hand smoke.
Environmental tobacco smoke causes about 10 times as manycardiovascular deaths as cancer deaths. (That's about 37,000 to 40,000 deathsannually, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.)
Studies show that the risk of death from heart disease isabout 30 percent higher among people exposed to environmental tobacco smoke athome. This figure could be much higher for people exposed at work, where theremay be higher levels of smoke.
Second-hand smoke promotes illness, too. Children ofsmokers have many more respiratory infections than children of nonsmokers.Nonsmoking women exposed to tobacco smoke are also more likely to havelow-birth-weight babies.
The best way to safeguard your health is to avoid tobaccosmoke as much as possible.
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Peripheral vascular disease is the narrowing of bloodvessels that carry blood to the leg and arm muscles. It's dangerous because if ablood clot block a narrowed artery, the result could be damage to -- or the lossof -- an arm or leg.
Smoking is a major risk factor of peripheral vasculardisease. Smokers get this disease more often and more severely than nonsmokers.Most people with this disease who later develop a blockage are smokers.
The good news is that people who stop smoking can oftenreduce the severity of peripheral vascular disease. And in cases where surgeryis needed, it's more likely to be successful in people who have stopped smoking.
Diabetes is another major risk factor for peripheralvascular disease. Diabetics who smoke cigarettes increase their risk of thisdisease even more.
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