Today, experts cautioned that smoking causes considerably more damage to the heart than previously believed.
Experts have known for decades that smoking can lead to clogged arteries, which can eventually lead to heart disease and strokes.
A study of nearly 4,000 participants has demonstrated that smoking can also thicken and weaken the heart.
Consequently, they struggle to circulate blood throughout the body.
And the more a person smokes, the worse their cardiovascular health grows.
However, experts discovered that the heart may recover to a certain level, thus it is never too late to quit smoking, according to Danish cardiologists.
Dr. Eva Holt, of Herlev and Gentofte Hospital in Copenhagen and the study’s principal author, stated, “Our study reveals that smoking not only destroys the blood vessels but also harms the heart directly.”
The good news is that giving up can reverse some of the damage.
Dozens of studies have linked smoking to heart failure – a condition in which the heart muscle can not pump blood around the body as efficiently as it should, typically due to being too weak or stiff.
As a result, the body is deprived of the oxygen and essential nutrients it needs to function normally.
However, the relationship between smoking and heart anatomy has not been well investigated.
The researchers studied the heart health of 3,874 individuals aged 20 to 99 who did not have cardiac disease in an earlier study.
Volunteers filled out questionnaires about their smoking history and underwent a heart scan, which offered information about its anatomy and performance.
Then, Dr. Holt and his colleagues compared the heart scans of current smokers to those of never-smokers.
Nearly one-fifth of participants were current smokers (18.6%), whereas 40.9% had smoked in the past and 40.5% had never smoked.
The findings, which will be presented on Friday at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Barcelona, indicate that current smokers have hearts that are bigger, weaker, and heavier than those who have never smoked.
In addition, their left ventricle, the most vital chamber of the heart, contained less blood and had less strength to pump blood to the rest of the body.
The scientists also observed that the heart abnormalities worsened proportionally to how much a person smoked.
And over 10 years, those who continued smoking had hearts that were bigger, heavier, and weaker than those who quit.
Dr. Holt stated, “The more a person smokes, the poorer their cardiac function becomes.”
It is never too late to quit smoking, as the heart can recover to a degree after smoking cessation.
The 7,000 compounds in tobacco, including tar and others that can restrict arteries and damage blood vessels, are believed to be partially responsible for the heart damage caused by smoking.
In the meantime, nicotine, a highly addictive poison present in cigarettes, is strongly associated with harmful heart rate and blood pressure increases.
Additionally, smoking releases harmful chemicals such as carbon monoxide, which substitutes oxygen in the blood, so lowering the oxygen supply to the heart.
In the 1970s, nearly half of Brits and Americans smoked cigarettes, compared to roughly one in eight today.
The English government hopes to reduce smoking rates to 5% by 2030, with a review this summer recommending that the legal age be raised to 21.
In the United Kingdom, smoking kills approximately 78,000 people annually, with many more suffering from smoking-related ailments, half of which are cardiovascular disorders such as heart attack and stroke.
The NHS spends £2.4 billion annually on smoking-related illnesses.
