To help prevent atherosclerosis, a person needs to eliminate the controllable risk factors, high blood cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, cigarette smoking, obesity, and lack of exercise. So depending on a particular person's risk factors, prevention may consist of lowering cholesterol levels, lowering blood pressure, quitting smoking, losing weight, and beginning an exercise program. Fortunately, taking steps to achieve some of these goals helps achieve others. For instance, starting an exercise program helps a person lose weight, which in turn helps lower cholesterol levels and blood pressure.
Quitting smoking helps lower cholesterol levels and blood pressure.
In people who already have a high risk of heart disease, smoking is particularly dangerous. Smoking also raises the level of carbon monoxide in the blood, which may increase the risk of injury to the lining of the arterial wall, and smoking constricts arteries already narrowed by atherosclerosis, further decreasing the amount of blood reaching the tissues. Plus, smoking increases the blood's tendency to clot, so it increases the risk of peripheral arterial disease, coronary artery disease, stroke, and obstruction of an arterial graft after surgery. A smoker's risk of coronary artery disease is directly related to the number of cigarettes smoked daily. People who quit smoking have only half the risk of those who continue to smoke, regardless of how long they smoked before quitting.