Smoking and Heart Disease

Most people associate cigarette smoking with breathing problems and lung cancer. But smoking is also a major cause of heart disease for men and women. A person's risk of heart disease and heart attack greatly increases with the number of cigarettes he or she smokes. People who smoke have a two to four times higher chance of having heart disease. And smokers continue to increase their risk of heart attack the longer they smoke. Women who smoke and also take birth control pills increase several times their risk of heart attack, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease.

Cigarette smoke not only affects smokers. When you smoke, the people around you are also at risk for developing health problems, especially children. Environmental tobacco smoke (also called passive smoke or secondhand smoke) affects people who are frequently around smokers. Secondhand smoke can cause chronic respiratory conditions, cancer, and heart disease. It is estimated that nearly 70,000 nonsmokers die from heart disease each year as a result of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke.