Most people associate cigarette smoking with lung cancer and breathing problems, but few realize that smoking is also a major and powerful cause of heart disease. Globally, cardiac disease is the leading cause of death among smokers. A report suggests that in the year 2000, worldwide, there were 1,690,000 deaths from heart diseases among smokers; in contrast to 850,000 lung cancer deaths in the same year. Cigarette smoking is a major cause of heart stroke and heart attack.The term heart disease is an umbrella term for a range of various diseases affecting the heart directly.

The risk of coronary heart disease is increased by smoking cigarettes.Smoking increases the tendency of blood to clot; decreases exercise tolerance and increases blood pressure.Cigarette smoking also increases the risk of recurrent coronary heart disease after bypass surgery. The connection between heart disease and passive smoking or second hand smoke is significant. Every year due to other people’s smoke, more than 69,600 deaths from heart disease are caused. Second hand smoke contributes to heart problems of people who are frequently around smokers.

Smoking damages blood vessels and speeds up atherosclerosis. This can reduce blood circulation resulting in peripheral arterial disease. Peripheral arterial disease can lead to amputation, gangrene, infection and blood clots. Cigarette smoking increases the risk of heart stroke by three times and heart attack by two to six times. Cigarette smoke contains carbon monoxide which is a poisonous gas that replaces oxygen in the blood and makes heart beat faster. The other ingredients of cigarette such as tobacco, nicotine and tar are also very harmful to the heart. Research implies that smoking may create irregularities in the timing of heartbeats, decreases oxygen supply to the heart, tightens major arteries and increases heart rate, all of which make one’s heart work weaker. Smoking adversely affects fibrinogen, which is a blood clotting material. As a result, the risk of blood clot increases which leads to a heart attack.

Within 24 hours of quitting smoking, oxygen levels in the blood rises, poisonous carbon monoxide is out of blood, blood pressure drops slightly and irregularity in the timing of heartbeats improves. Within 1 year, the risk of heart attack and stroke reduces significantly. The danger of developing coronary heart disease comes back to the same level as that of a non-smoker within 2-6 years of quitting smoking. Thus smoking cessation definitely helps in reducing the risk of heart diseases.