Heart Disease - Prevention is better than cure

Dateline: 04/05/98

SMOKING

How can you reduce your risk of heart disease ? If you missed the other parts of this series, check them out now.

Heart Risk Factors - what are they ? Stop Puffing - keep living High Blood Pressure - the silent killer Raised Cholesterol - clogging the pipes Getting Physical - exercise for a healthy heart Lean and Mean - trim the flab and live longer

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Stop puffing away your life.

If you're a smoker, this article is for you.

If you aren't, congratulations. You can move right on to the next step - Keeping Pressure Down.

Smoking and Your Heart

Addiction to the deadly weed called tobacco is single handedly responsible for an impressive array of medical illnesses - heart disease, a variety of cancers, stroke, bronchitis, emphysema and more.

But the encouraging news is that once you stop smoking, in a surprisingly short period your risk of getting heart disease drops dramatically - to the levels of non-smokers.

So its never too late to quit - Do It Now !

The Statistical Evidence

Here are some hard numbers that might help you kick the habit, and improve your quality of life as well.

• In the US, a high prevalence of smoking (>70%) has been reported among patients having acute myocardial infarction
• Cigarette consumption in Africa has increased by over 40% in the past two decades.
• Cigarette smoking remains the leading preventable cause of CHD in women, with more than 50% of MIs among middle-aged women attributable to tobacco.
• The magnitude of excess risk, a twofold to fourfold elevation, is similar in women and men.
• Risk of CHD begins to decline within months of smoking cessation and reaches the level of persons who have never smoked within 3 to 5 years.
• Although the prevalence of smoking among US women declined from 34% in 1965 to 24% in 1991, smoking cessation rates have declined more slowly among women than men.

On the basis of current trends, it is estimated that by the year 2000 smoking rates will be higher in women (23%) than in men (20%). These changing demographics of smoking, particularly the unfavorable smoking patterns among younger women, may contribute substantially to the future burden of CHD on women, as well as other smoking-related illnesses.

Next : High Blood Pressure and Heart Disease

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For more resources on heart disease, you can

• visit the archives for related articles
• visit the resource library
• check out the heart disease bookstore

FAVORITES FOREVER Take some time to browse through this site. Check out some more articles covering different areas of heart disease: Through the Keyhole : Minimally Invasive Heart Surgery Bypass Surgery sans Bypass : the MICAS website Catching 'em Young : Fetal Cardiac Surgery The Gender Gap : Heart Disease in Women Heart Birth Defects : Congenital Heart Disease Caring after Curing : Post-Op Care for Heart Surgery Between Mother and Child : Pregnancy and Heart Disease
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