High blood pressure: Lifestyle changes to reduce reading
We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info
Smoking tobacco – in any form – is “very harmful to your heart”, the British Heart Foundation noted. The chemicals in cigarettes, for example, make the walls of the arteries sticky. Sticky arteries are at increased risk of collecting fatty material that could clog the artery and reduce blood flow around the body. If, for example, blood flow is restricted to the heart, a heart attack follows; if blood is blocked to the brain, then a stroke occurs.
Smoking not only causes sticky arteries (increasing the risk of death), it can further increase the chance of developing a deadly blood clot.
Moreover, the unhealthy habit can instantly raise your heart rate and immediately increase your blood pressure.
Damaging your body in this way will reduce the amount of oxygen tissues and organs receive.
Smoking is considered one of the “biggest risk factors” for heart and circulatory diseases.
Breathing in secondhand smoke or passively smoking is also extremely dangerous, putting you at risk of breathing issues.
Each cigarette contains around 4,000 chemicals, with most being toxic and harmful to your health.
Examples include carbon monoxide – a poisonous gas – tar, which causes sticky brown residue to coat the lungs, hiking the risk of cancer, and nicotine.
“When you breathe in smoke, around two thirds of the tar stays in your lungs,” the charity explained.
Nicotine is the “addictive chemical” found in cigarettes that contributes to sticky artery walls.
The British Heart Foundation (BHF) promised “it is never too late to give up smoking”.
A person’s long-term health can be improved by stubbing out the toxic habit for good.
“If you quit smoking, it can take as little as a few hours for the health benefits to start showing,” the BHF noted.
In as little as 20 minutes of not smoking, blood pressure will begin to return to normal.
After one year of not smoking “you have halved your risk of having a heart attack or stroke”.
Other benefits include:
- Fresher breath
- Whiter teeth
- More youthful skin
- Age less quickly
- More energy
- Easier to fight off colds and flu
- Increased sex drive
- Improved fertility.
“On average, men will add 10 years to their life if they quit by the age of 30,” the BHF noted.
“Many people will add three years to their life if they quit by the aged of 60.”
Source: Read Full Article