August 15, 2006
Angela Hochreiter, MPH, RD, YKHC Healthy Hearts Program Coordinator
Smoking has a direct effect on heart disease. The lungs, heart and blood vessels are all linked in a "cardiovascular" system. So, what you put into your lungs affects that system. Smoking can harm your heart and lungs, raise your blood pressure and raise your blood cholesterol levels.
If you never start smoking cigarettes, you will be much less likely to develop heart disease. If you have been a smoker and you quit, your risk of heart disease will drop by more than half after one year. There are other health benefits from keeping your lungs free of smoke--non-smokers are less likely to have lung diseases and lung cancer, as well as other cancers.
Your health and the health of others who live in your household should be reason enough to not smoke. There are all kinds of additional benefits to avoiding cigarettes. Think of the money that you will be able to spend on other things that you want. For example, the cost of a single pack of cigarettes in Bethel is about $6 plus tax. Just one year costs a pack-a-day smoker over $2,000! That's a lot of money to throw away. And cigarette smokers have the side effects of yellow stains on their teeth and fingers, bad breath and gum disease.
If you are not a cigarette smoker, don't even think about starting. If you are a smoker, there's help. Former smokers say that the best way to quit is to use a combination of these three methods:
- nicotine patch or nicotine gum,
- support and encouragement, and
- learning how to handle stress and urges to smoke
For help getting started, call YKHC's Nicotine Control Department in Bethel at 543-6312 or outside Bethel at 1-800-478-3321. It will be the best thing you ever do for your heart!
In this monthly column, I have been sharing many ways to reduce your risks for heart disease. Also, you can call me at 543-6999 if you want more information about heart disease and how you can get involved to strengthen the heartbeat of our community.
Next month: Getting Motivated to Change Your Lifestyle