Smoking Hypertension and Heart Diseases

If you are a smoker and also a patient of hypertension then it may be due to the cigarettes that you smoke. Some medical researches found that nicotine inhaled due to tobacco smoke can increase your blood pressure up to certain level. So quitting smoking can definitely help you in lowering you blood pressure. However smoking is not the only factor responsible for hypertension, so if you think that quitting smoking will completely correct your blood pressure readings then you might be wrong.

Heart Attack Risk Calculator

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Effect of smoking on Heart and Blood Pressure

• Walls of arteries get hardened due to long term effect of smoking as the elastic tissues are damaged. It makes a person incapable of handling sudden hike in blood pressure even in normal circumstances like running.
• Lining of arteries is damaged by smoking which causes a buildup of atheroma (a fatty material). It narrows the artery which can cause angina, heart attack or stroke.
• Nicotine in cigarettes makes our body to produce adrenaline hormone, which increase our heart beat and raises blood pressure, thus making excess work load on heart. 
• Carbon monoxide inhaled through smoke reduces the proportion of oxygen. Due to this reason our heart pumps faster to provide adequate amount of oxygen to body.
• Normally clotting occurs on wounds to stop bleeding but in smokers blood clot may get formed inside arteries which blocks or reduces the blood supply. If such clot happens in brain then it can cause stroke. If such clot is formed in some coronary artery then it may cause heart attack.

Nicotine found in cigarette smoke can instantly increase your hear beat and blood pressure and addicted smokers can continuously keep their blood pressure up due to chain smoking. So if you quit smoking then you instantly reduce your blood pressure up to some level.

Some facts about smoking and heart health

• Smokers are twice more prone to heart attack compared to a non-smoker.
• Smokers are three times more susceptible to angina than non smokers.
• 20% of all deaths related to heart diseases in US are due to cigarette smoking.
• The risk of heart attack increases with the number of cigarettes a person smokes per day.
•  The risk of heart attack and stroke increases significantly in those women who smoke and also take birth control pills. 
• As soon as you quit smoking the risk of heart diseases decreases significantly.
• Quitting smoking can increase your life as a result of better heart health.