HEART DISEASE

According to the American Heart Association, smoking is a woman’s single biggest risk factor for heart attack⁵. Women who smoke also carry a six fold increase of having a heart attack than nonsmoking women⁵.  Smoking is also known to be a bigger risk factor for women than men⁵.  Coronary heart disease is the number 1 killer of women in the United States and cigarette smoking doubles the risk³⁶.   

Aside from smoking, women must realize that their cardiovascular risk increases after menopause.  After menopause, there is a deficiency in estrogen in a woman.  Before menopause, the estrogen that is present, protects a woman’s cardiovascular system by method’s that are still under investigation.  What is a known fact, is that estrogen down-regulates the androgen receptors in fat cells which decreases the rate of lipid degradation and increases the uptake of lipids from the blood¹⁰.  It is also known that the less fat that is present in the bloodstream, the lower the risk for arteriosclerosis.  This could be a connection between the increased risks for cardiovascular disease after menopause.

Cigarette smoking puts added strain on the heart because it causes vessels to clamp down or constrict. If some of the blood vessels have already been narrowed or damaged by heart disease, smoking makes the problem worse.  Smoking also causes temporary changes in your heart; it beats faster, raising your blood pressure and reducing blood flow. Plus, smoking increases the level of carbon monoxide in your blood, which robs your heart and other tissues of vital oxygen⁵.  Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (clogged arteries) is the chief contributor to the high number of deaths from smoking. Many studies detail the evidence that cigarette smoking is a major cause of coronary heart disease, which leads to heart attack.

A study published in Cardiovascular Research said that smoking is a major cause of coronary heart disease for both men and women and a positive correlation between tobacco use and cerebrovascular disease (stroke) has been also described. In addition, cigarette smoking is the most powerful risk factor predisposing to atherosclerotic peripheral artery disease. The incidence of coronary artery and cerebrovascular diseases in ex-smokers consistently decreases after smoking cessation, further underlying the relevance of smoking as a risk factor for these pathological conditions. The effects of cigarette smoking on the initiation, continuation, and rate of complications of atherosclerosis are higher in smokers than in non-smoking subjects¹¹. 

Another study also stated that in contrast, compared with those who never smoked, the prevalence odds ratios for carotid atherosclerosis were 1.7 times higher for former smokers, 2.8 times higher for current smokers of 1 to 20 cigarettes per day and 1.9 times higher than smokers of >20 cigarettes day. The experimenters concluded that smoking is associated with increased odds of carotid atherosclerosis¹⁶.  

To conclude this section, a report that was released on March 1^st, 2001 by Surgeon General David Satcher, M.D., PH.D. regarding, "Women and Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General 2001" which emphasized the deadly impact the tobacco industry and smoking has on the health of women and girls in the United States.  The report stated that among women in this nation, heart disease is the leading cause of death. Women who smoke have a higher relative risk of developing cardiovascular disease than their male counterparts. More than 22 percent of all women over 18 years old are smokers, putting them at increased risk for heart attack and stroke. Women who smoke are two to six times as likely to suffer a heart attack as non-smoking women. Tobacco use, which kills about 165,000 women each year, is responsible for about 41 percent of coronary heart disease (CHD) deaths among women under 65 years old. For those over 65, 12 percent die from CHD attributable to smoking. Those women who quit smoking, however, can reduce the risk of coronary heart disease by 25 to 50 percent after one year.  Overall, smoking-related cardiovascular disease is responsible for nearly half of the more than 400,000 tobacco-related deaths in the United States. As a matter of fact, "light" and "low tar" cigarettes, which are heavily marketed to women, often have higher yields of carbon monoxide which is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease⁵.