We have all heard the horror stories of why we shouldn’t smoke and how bad it is for you. Even if you ignore what people say, the warnings are now all over the packets themselves.
And it’s not hard to see where the culprit is, after all there are over 7,000 chemicals in each cigarette with 50+ of those being known carcinogens.
It’s natural then when we think of cigarettes the first thought will be cancer, after all there are over 50 chemicals in cigarettes that can cause cancer.
However one of the most common ways that cigarettes can kill you is by a heart disease, with 48% of all smoking deaths caused by heart failure.
Smoking damaging your heart
Like with all things to do with cigarettes they can hurt your heart in multiple ways:
Smoking, and all the toxins it releases into your body, causes damage to the lining of your arteries, leading to a build-up of fatty material which narrows arteries. When there is narrowing and clogging of the arteries this reduces blood supply and amount of oxygen throughout the entire body. This damages your heart, as it is literally putting more pressure on it, but it can lead to other problems too, like strokes.
Leading on from this, the torn and damaged blood vessels can also cause blood clots. One of the key chemicals to do this in cigarettes is arsenic. It is not only a poison in general but is one of the chemicals that tears your blood vessels. Blood clots can be dangerous as they can stop the flow of blood to the heart.
On a different note, the carbon monoxide in tobacco smoke reduces the amount of oxygen in your blood. This means your heart has to pump harder to supply the body with the oxygen it needs. Over time this can wear the heart down, and put it at more risk of failing. This isn’t helped by the fact that long term smoking damages your lungs anyway and hinders you from absorbing oxygen.
Combine the lack of oxygen from your lungs and tobacco smoke replacing the oxygen you need and you get a real problem which only gets worse the longer you smoke.
Increased heart disease risk
Cigarette smoke is a danger to your heart, and can directly damage your heart. But smoking can hurt your heart and contribute to heart disease in more subtle ways as well. When it acts with other factors, such as decreasing exercise tolerance. Due to the lower lung capacity and slower re-growth rates smokers have it can be much harder for them to get and stay fit, and like any muscle the heart grows weaker if it’s not worked properly.
Not only might do smokers have more heart attacks, strokes and anagina (chest pains from clogged arteries) than non-smokers, but this also could happen at a much younger age.
As a smoker you are four times more likely to die of heart disease and three times likely to die from sudden cardiac death if you smoke cigarettes.
And if you are a woman the chance is even higher, as women smokers are 13 times more likely to suffer some sort of heart disease than men.
Second hand smoke causes heart attacks
But what about those who don’t even smoke, but are just unluck enough to be breathe in other’s cigarette smoke?
Sadly they are also at more risk of heart disease and damage. People exposed to passive, or 2nd hand, smoke also inhale the same poisonous gases and thousands of toxic chemicals found in tobacco smoke and so are affected in the same way. Cigarette smoke damages their arteries and puts them at increased risk of arteries tearing or creating blood clots.
Luckily it takes a while for passive smoking to affect someone, so breathing in someone’s smoke one time won’t do it. But if you live with a smoker, or regularly get into a car with someone who smokes in the car, it can be a real issue.
This is why it is important to get rid of the cigarettes, especially if you are living in a household with other adults, children and pets.
Don’t Give Up on Quitting
But if you have tried to quit before, and it never works, then maybe it’s time to make the switch to SMOKO instead?
With e-cigarettes you not only get the taste and feel of a cigarette, which can help you make the switch easier, but the nicotine you crave too. What you don’t get is the 7000 chemicals and 50+ carcinogens that are in cigarettes and cause the damage to your heart.
So try an E-Cigarette starter kit today and see if you too can make the switch to a healthier alternative,for cheaper than a pack of cigarettes!
