We hope that this will hit home more when smokers find out truly how much damage we predict smoking cigarettes causes. By determining our data from research off of our peers, this should be more effective than a less personal statistic in the media. Smoking increases the risk of coronary heart disease and heart attack to up to five times the normal risk. This occurs as a result of smoke lowering the quantities of antioxidants in the bloodstream, which help to protect the heart. Without antioxidants in the bloodstream, or with lowered amounts, the heart is more prone to disease.
Smoking also increases the risk of emphysema and cancer.
In addition, it is not only smokers who are affected by smoke. Passive or second hand smokers run the same health risks as smokers just from inhaling other's cigarettes smoke, including increased risk of heart disease. Second-hand smoke also has tentative links to diverse ailments such as various cancers, strokes, sudden infant death syndrome, and an increase in the effects of cystic fibrosis and asthma. Cigarette smoking should affect blood pressure and heart rate because nicotine narrows the blood vessels that lead to extremities on the body, forcing the heart to work harder to supply blood to these extremities. This helps to explain why so many smokers are prone to strokes and aneurysms.