Cardiac Risk Factor: Smoking

Behold!
Wiser are those who never smoked.
Repent!

Kick that abominable habit now for thy shall be rewarded with much less chance of having heart attacks, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease.

Enticing advertisements aimed at children, the social behavior of the superstars of our pop culture, the tobacco lobbyists of Washington, are all reaching the targets so well, that about 3000 more children become new smokers each day. Hail to the camel!

We have an estimated 26 million men and 23 million women who are currently smokers. Smoking takes a very high toll on human lives. From 1990-1994, on an average, 430,000 people died from smoking-related illnesses such as emphysema, cancer, and coronary artery disease. Nicotine, carbon monoxide, and tar are the major offenders inhaled with smoking. Nicotine, a very potent vasoconstrictor element, produces constriction of the arteries, enhances atherosclerosis, and increases the chance of thrombosis in the coronary arteries leading to heart attacks.

Nicotine is an addictive drug, and therefore must be considered as such.

Carbon monoxide competes for the oxygen carried through the blood, thereby making this life-sustaining gas less available to the vital organs in the body. Tar, of course, is the major culprit for cancer. Since the mid 1960s, we have known that smoking is a major cardiac hazard, and that it increases the mortality of patients with coronary artery disease by 50%. If a person continues to smoke after a heart attack, the risk of reinfarction and death are quite markedly increased in the range of 22-50%. Continued smoking is a key factor in bypass graft atherosclerosis and thrombosis. If a patient continues to smoke after an angioplasty or coronary stenting, the restenosis rate as well as progression of disease in the unintervened vessels is high. Second-hand smoking poses substantial risk for coronary artery disease with an estimated 40,000 coronary deaths in the United States alone.

A person known to have high risk for coronary artery disease dies 10 -15 years earlier if he/she smokes.

In spite of some of the quasi-purposive measures from the United States government, and other Healthcare Maintenance Organizations, the incidence of smoking amongst young people is rapidly on the rise. Enticing advertisements aimed at children, the social behavior of the superstars of pop cultures, the tobacco lobbyists of Washington are all reaching the target so well that about 3,000 more children become new smokers each day. Nicotine is an addictive drug, and therefore must be considered as such.