ISTOCK.COM
The good news is that quitting helps — even after years of
steady or heavy smoking. When you stop smoking, carbon monoxide levels in your blood return to normal within 12 hours. Within just one year, your added risk for heart disease is cut in half. That’s a big deal for your health. Plus, you’ll avoid breathing in known toxins — carbon monoxide, ammonia, arsenic and formaldehyde, to name a few — that are components of cigarettes!
What’s at Stake When it comes to heart and vascular health, smoking causes one of every four deaths from cardiovascular disease, according to the 2014 Surgeon General’s Report on smoking and health. In addition to harming nearly every organ in your body, it delays healing. In fact, many surgeons now require patients to go 30 days without smoking before major surgeries due to the risk of poor healing and infection. The damage smoking causes sets the path for hardening and narrowing of the arteries, called atherosclerosis, and peripheral vascular disease (a disease in the vessels that supply blood to the arms and legs). Any amount of smoking — even light or occasional smoking — damages the heart and blood vessels.
Hazards of Secondhand Smoke Avoid secondhand smoke, and protect your loved ones from it if you smoke.
Contact with secondhand smoke — also called
environmental tobacco smoke — from burning tobacco or the smoke exhaled (breathed out) from a smoker is also harmful. Breathing in someone else’s exhaled smoke lowers HDL or good cholesterol, raises blood pressure and can damage the heart tissue. It also increases the risk of having a heart attack, having a stroke and dying. Among nonsmokers, secondhand smoke increases the
risk for developing heart disease or having a stroke by up to 30 percent. More than 34,000 nonsmokers die every year in the U.S. from coronary heart disease caused by secondhand smoke, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The data are so compelling that many workplaces have instituted smoking bans, and research shows a parallel drop in heart attacks, hospital visits for cardiac problems and, in some states, deaths.
Smoking & Cardiovascular Disease We often hear about how smoking hurts the lungs. After all, smokers’ lungs take in more than 7,000 chemicals — 70 of which are known to cause cancer — from cigarettes. But smoking cigarettes also affects the heart and blood vessels and remains one of the most preventable causes of heart disease. When you smoke, your arteries tighten, which makes your heart work harder. Smoking also can trigger an irregular heart
rhythm and raise blood pressure, which are leading causes of a stroke. According to the CDC, smoking:
v Causes thickening and narrowing of blood vessels. v Raises triglycerides (a type of fat in your blood). v Lowers HDL. v Makes blood sticky and more likely to clot, which can block blood flow to the heart and brain.
v Damages the cells that line the blood vessels; the cells become swollen and inflamed.
v Promotes the buildup of plaque (fat, cholesterol, calcium and other substances) in blood vessels and even plaque rupture (resulting in a heart attack). A recent study shows that smoking is also associated with a thickening of the heart and lowers the heart’s pumping ability — both of which are associated with heart failure. The longer you smoke and the more cigarettes you smoke
even without having had heart disease, the greater the damage to your heart’s structure and function. Former smokers have similar heart structure and function to people who never smoked, which points to the importance of quitting smoking to help reverse any damage.
Your Healthy Lifestyle In addition to efforts to quit smoking or avoid secondhand smoke, seek other ways you can live more healthfully and lower your risk of heart disease, having a stroke and other health issues. Try to: v Exercise regularly. v Be mindful about eating heart-healthy foods. v Achieve a healthy body weight. v Manage stress. v Limit alcohol (≤1 a day for women; ≤2 for men). v Ensure other health conditions, such as diabetes, are under control or being addressed.
v Manage other risk factors for cardiovascular disease. v Keep up with routine and follow-up healthcare visits. v Stay current with vaccinations.
It’s Never Too Late to Stop Quitting smoking isn’t easy, but it has major health benefits. Many people assume wrongly that kicking the habit won’t make a difference. They may say, “I’ve been a smoker all of my life, so there’s no point in quitting now.” Plus, it becomes part of their routine.
But both data and experiences show it’s never too late to quit.
In fact, some of the health benefits happen pretty quickly. Blood pressure, for example, drops soon after not smoking. Need more convincing? According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: v Within 20 minutes of quitting, your heart rate will decrease. v Within 12 hours of quitting, the carbon monoxide levels in
23
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
