HEART PROBLEMS

Smoking Related

Smoking is the biggest cause of coronary heart disease in the UK. 19 out of 100 deaths from heart disease are associated with smoking, with 10 out of 100 deaths from stroke associated with smoking as well. If a smoker continues to smoke following a heart attack, they effectively double the risk of having another heart attack in the same year.

The main chemicals of smoking which have the greatest effect on the heart are carbon monoxide and nicotine. Carbon monoxide reduces the amount of oxygen that the haemoglobin in the blood can carry. Nicotine is a powerful vasoconstrictor. Vasoconstriction causes hypertension (high blood pressure) which makes the heart work much harder to eject blood into the body. Nicotine also affects the platelets in the blood, making them more likely to attach themselves to a blockage or narrowing in the artery wall of the coronary arteries and form a clot. Once this clot is established, a heart attack or myocardial infarction follows rapidly, sometimes with lethal consequences.