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Dr. Shereef ElBardisy
Cardiology Consultant
Saudi German Hospital – Dubai
Smoking is a deliberate & slow death of the soul, so prevent it… Don’t put your own health at risk.
It is well known to everyone that smoking is closely linked to lung diseases and cancer, but smoking has a direct relationship with heart and blood vessel diseases, as smoking is considered one of the main risk factors for atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries that feeds the heart muscle, leading to acute heart attacks and death.
It is worth mentioning that cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of death worldwide. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 17.9 million people died from cardiovascular diseases in 2019, representing 32% of all global deaths. Common heart diseases include: coronary artery disease, heart failure, heart valve disease, and high blood pressure.
Smokers are at greater risk of heart attacks, as smoking damages blood vessels due to atherosclerosis by increasing the rate of accumulation of fats and cholesterol in the walls of the arteries, which leads to hardening and narrowing, which reduces blood flow to the heart and other organs. The nicotine in all types of smoking also leads to high blood pressure, which puts an additional burden on the heart. Smoking also leads to heart rhythm disturbances and a general decrease in the efficiency of the heart muscle, which leads to heart failure in some cases. Smoking is also associated with increased blood clotting, which increases the risk of stroke. Therefore, quitting smoking is an important step to protect heart health and reduce the risk of heart diseases. There is no doubt that the damage to the heart due to smoking is very great, but it is possible to repair this damage and improve heart health. In the event of quitting smoking of all kinds, after only twenty minutes of stopping smoking, the heart rate and blood pressure levels in the body decrease, and on the first day of quitting smoking, the levels of nicotine and carbon monoxide in the blood decrease and oxygen returns to normal levels. There are also many long-term benefits to quitting smoking, after only one year, the risk of stroke decreases by half compared to a smoker, and if a person stops smoking for 15 consecutive years, the likelihood of having a heart attack decreases significantly as if the person had never smoked before…
Is electronic smoking a safe solution?
Many smokers’ believe that electronic smoking replaces regular smoking and more safe and less risky… We will prove in the next issue of the Gulf Health Magazine that this belief is wrong and that electronic smoking, although less dangerous than regular smoking, is full of risks and is not a safe solution in any way…
