Heart Disease
Your chances of getting a heart attack increase considerably if you
continue to smoke, and there really isn’t any safe number of cigarettes
that you can smoke every day. However, the more you smoke, the greater
are your chances of having heart related problems.
Cigarette smoking is a very big factor when it comes to Coronary Heart
Disease, and as a smoker, your chances of having a heart attack increase
two or three times. If you also have high blood pressure or increased
cholesterol levels, then the possibility increases even further. Around
80% of the heart attacks that occur in men under the age of 45 occur in
men who smoke.
Once you inhale the smoke from a cigarette, the heart and the blood
vessels surrounding it have several immediate reactions. After a minute
of your starting to smoke there is a rise in the heart rate, and it can
increase by up to 30% within the first ten minutes. Blood pressure also
rises when you smoke, and the constriction of blood vessels forces your
heart to exert more energy in transporting oxygen. At the same time, the
carbon monoxide present in cigarette smoke reduces the ability of the
blood to transport oxygen.
You, as a smoker, also have 5 times more chances of developing abdominal
aortic aneurysms as compared to non-smokers. |
