Smoking and Heart Health


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Smoking cigarettes can harm nearly any part of your body, including your heart and blood vessels (cardiovascular system).


When smoked in, the toxic mix of more than 7,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke can interfere with important processes in your body that keep it functioning normally. One of these processes is the delivery of oxygen-rich blood to your heart and the rest of your body.


When you breathe, your lungs take in oxygen and deliver it to your heart, which pumps this oxygen-rich blood to the rest of your body through the blood vessels.


When you breathe in cigarette smoke, the blood that is distributed to the rest of the body becomes contaminated with the smoke’s chemicals.


These chemicals can damage your heart and blood vessels, which can lead to cardiovascular disease (CVD)—the leading cause of all deaths.


Therefore, Smoking cigarettes can permanently damage your heart and blood vessels. This can lead to cardiovascular diseases. Some of these conditions include:


  • Coronary heart disease, or the narrowing of blood vessels carrying blood to the heart.
  • Hypertension (high blood pressure).
  • Heart attack.
  • Stroke.
  • Aneurysms (a bulge or weakness in an artery).
  • Peripheral artery disease.

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