“Smoking is hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and dangerous to the lungs.”

King James I

Now knowing from part 1 of this article you’ll understand why smoking alone can cause the following conditions, Through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They state the following:

Smoking and Increased Health Risks

Compared with nonsmokers, smoking is estimated to increase the risk of—

• Coronary heart disease by 2 to 4 times, ^(causing atherosclerosis=thickening of the vessels or due to arteriosclerosis=hardening of the arteries and remember smoking causes vasoconstriction of the vessels = increase pressure in the vessels = high B/P.
• Stroke by 2 to 4 times (Due to causing the above problems listed under coronary heart disease.)
• Men developing lung cancer by 23 times,
• Women developing lung cancer by 13 times(cancers due to constant irritation of the tissues) , and
• Dying from chronic obstructive lung diseases (such as chronic bronchitis and emphysema) by 12 to 13 times. ( Explained at the top)

Smoking and Cardiovascular Disease

• Smoking causes coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.
• Cigarette smoking causes reduced circulation by narrowing the blood vessels (arteries) and puts smokers at risk of developing peripheral vascular disease (i.e., obstruction of the large arteries in the arms and legs that can cause a range of problems from pain to tissue loss or gangrene) This pain to gangrene to amputation is due to lack of oxygenated blood getting to the tissue caused by the vasoconstriction the cigarette smoking caused.
• Smoking causes abdominal aortic aneurysm (i.e., a swelling or weakening of the main artery of the body—the aorta—where it runs through the abdomen). An aneurysm with constant vasoconstriction (increases pressure) puts the aneurysm at risk for rupture because the aneurysm area isn’t as strong as the other vessels=Rupture of the aortic aneurysm

Smoking and Respiratory Disease

• Smoking causes lung cancer.
• Smoking causes lung diseases (e.g., emphysema, bronchitis, chronic airway obstruction) by damaging the airways and alveoli (i.e., small air sacs) of the lungs.

Smoking and Cancer

Smoking causes the following cancers: (in alphabetical order)

• Acute myeloid leukemia
• Bladder cancer
• Cancer of the cervix
• Cancer of the esophagus
• Kidney cancer
• Cancer of the larynx (voice box)
• Lung cancer
• Cancer of the oral cavity (mouth)
• Pancreatic cancer
• Cancer of the pharynx (throat)
• Stomach cancer

Smoking and Other Health Effects

Smoking has many adverse reproductive and early childhood effects, including increased risk for—

• Infertility
• Preterm delivery
• Stillbirth
• Low birth weight
• Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).^1,2,9Smoking is associated with the following adverse health effects:¹

• Postmenopausal women who smoke have lower bone density than women who never smoked.
• Women who smoke have an increased risk for hip fracture than women who never smoked.

Get it now?   Please say yes. Smoking rots for your body not just in the lungs but everywhere. How do you make a complete turn-around? Look at your health in regards to what your goal is out of life. Do you want to live longer and most importantly HEALTHIER? When healthier in mind and body you are able to do more with your life in activities of daily living and more than that, so QUIT. If you want to sit most of your life with continuing to smoke but if not you must stop smoking now unless you have a unusual discipline in your way of living that allows you to have a about 6 cigarettes to 1 pack a YEAR, not daily. It is recommended you stop completely but if it actually has to be a part of your life than do it in moderation or less.  If you’re able to do that your definitely not addicted to the bad habit physically, if anything addicted to it mentally. That would still make your life healthier as to smoking frequently every day. Know you take the risk of increasing your quantity in time so I recommend Quit.

Various lifestyle factors have been associated with increasing the risk of stroke. These include lack of exercise, alcohol, diet, obesity, smoking, drug use, and stress. Guidelines endorsed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health recommend that Americans should exercise for at least 30 minutes of moderately intense physical activity on most, and preferably all, days of the week. Recent epidemiologic studies have shown a U-shaped curve for alcohol consumption and coronary heart disease mortality, with low-to-moderate alcohol consumption associated with lower overall mortality. High daily dietary intake of fat is associated with obesity and may act as an independent risk factor or may affect other stroke risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and cardiac disease. Homocysteine is another important dietary component associated with stroke risk, while other dietary stroke risk factors are thought to be mediated through the daily intake of several vitamins and antioxidants. Smoking, especially current smoking, is a crucial and extremely modifiable independent determinant of stroke. Despite the obstacles to the modification of lifestyle factors, health professionals should be encouraged to continue to identify such factors and help improve our ability to prevent stroke, decrease cancers caused by smoking, decrease coronary artery disease, and obesity.   Learn healthy habits or healthier habits, broaden your knowledge on the 4 food groups in what is lean or leaner or leanest with each group, increase your activity 30 minutes a day and learn what a healthy diet actually is through Dr. Wayne Scott Anderson’s book “Dr. A’s habits of health” and even if you need to lose weight we can show you the way to do it healthy. It’s not a diet for 3 months or even 6 to a year but it is learning how to get to your body mass index in the ideal weight range for your height and you decide how low you want to go. We can show you through the book and those having more difficulty can buy our foods for 6 months or even a year or in my case I started almost a year ago and I use both their healthy foods as well as healthy foods from the store. You decide the choices, no one else. If you are interested go to my website healthyusa.tsfl.com and peek at what we offer for no prescription, no charge, no donation and no hacking. If you like what you see join me and so many others trying to get America healthier and in time decrease our population in diseases or illnesses primarily impacted by health habits, diet, and weight. Wouldn’t you and the future want to get better in mind and body to impact our health care system that includes our insurance and most importantly lives of citizens in the USA in how they live (which would be more active). It is your choice and I hope you decide to come aboard to my website healthyusa.tsfl.com and I know if I could do it so can too. It just takes discipline and the drive to want to stay healthy or get in a better state of heath. Hope I have helped someone out there in broadening your knowledge regarding how to keep or reach a healthier life.

References For both Part 1 and Part 2:

1. S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2004 [accessed 2013 June 28].
2. S. Department of Health and Human Services. How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease: What It Means to You. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2010 [accessed 2013 June 28].
3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Annual Smoking-Attributable Mortality, Years of Potential Life Lost, and Productivity Losses—United States, 2000–2004. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 2008;57(45):1226–8 [accessed 2013 June 28].
4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. QuickStats: Number of Deaths from 10 Leading Causes–National Vital Statistics System, United States, 2010. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 2013:62(08);155. [accessed 2013 June 28].
5. Mokdad AH, Marks JS, Stroup DF, Gerberding JL. Actual Causes of Death in the United States. JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association 2004;291(10):1238–45 [cited 2013 June 28].
6. S. Department of Health and Human Services. Reducing the Health Consequences of Smoking: 25 Years of Progress. A Report of the Surgeon General. Rockville (MD): U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 1989 [accessed 2013 June 28].
7. Ockene IS, Miller NH. Cigarette Smoking, Cardiovascular Disease, and Stroke: A Statement for Healthcare Professionals from the American Heart Association. Circulation 1997;96(9):3243–7 [accessed 2013 June 28].
8. Institute of Medicine. Secondhand Smoke Exposure and Cardiovascular Effects: Making Sense of the Evidence. [PDF–707 KB] Washington: National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine, 2009 [accessed 2013 June 28].
9. S. Department of Health and Human Services. Women and Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General. Rockville (MD): U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Office of the Surgeon General, 2001 [accessed 2013 June 28].

Let’s start with what smoking actually does to the body. Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body. Smoking causes many diseases and reduces the health of smokers in general. It primarily starts at the lungs. How?   Well think of your lung tissue with openings all over which are air sacs called alveoli. This is an anatomical structure that has the form of a hollow cavity which does the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in and out of our body, when we inhale and exhale. The thing to know about this tissue is that before you start smoking the alveoli are expandable (think of it like a rubber band) allowing the person to get a good exchange of oxygen getting in the body to go to all our tissues and carbon dioxide getting out of the body (O2=oxygen being the fuel to our tissues and without it causes cellular starvation, carbon dioxide=CO2 being an acid / toxin to the human body and exhaled by the lungs).   After years of smoking the alveoli stretches out not allowing a good exchange of O2 and CO2. The sad thing for a smoker is the alveoli CANNOT REVERSE back after damage has already occurred unless you had a lung transplant with continuing to smoke, which no M.D. or health insurance would allow. More realistic would be QUIT the bad habit. The tissue doesn’t get completely better but it improves when you quit. So the pt with Emphysema has alveoli that can’t exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide from the blood like it use to at the bottom of the lungs, prior to even starting to smoke. Also, after smoking years and when diagnosed with COPD you have difficulty breathing (that is why smoking is a major cause of bronchitis or Emphysema=types of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease=COPD and it is not REVERSIBLE). Emphysema is the worst type of COPD you can get. COPD is the third leading cause of death in the U.S., and the economic burden of COPD in the U.S. in 2007 was $42.6 billion in health care costs and lost productivity. Isn’t this reason enough to stop smoking?

Emphysema is an enlargement of the air spaces distal to the terminal bronchioles, with destruction of their walls. People with emphysema have historically been known as “Pink Puffers”, due to their pink complexion.

Chronic bronchitis is defined in clinical terms as a cough with sputum production on most days for 3 months of a year, for 2 consecutive years. People with advanced COPD that have primarily chronic bronchitis were commonly referred to as “Blue Bloaters” because of the bluish color of the skin and lips (cyanosis) along with hypoxia and fluid retention.

Know when the lungs get affected in time the heart gets affected. One affects the other in time. The heart can’t live without the lungs and vice versa.

Now knowing just this you’ll understand why smoking alone can cause the so many unhealthy conditions which will be discussed in Part 2 tomorrow.  Have a great day readers!

“Erectile dysfunction (ED) is common in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF). ED reduces quality of life, and it may affect compliance, thereby impairing the success of CHF treatment. ”

American Heart Association

“In addition to relieving patient suffering, research is needed to help reduce the enormous economic and social burdens posed by chronic diseases such as osteoporosis, arthritis, diabetes, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, cancer, heart disease, and stroke.”

Ike Skelton (born December 20, 1931) is an American politician who was the U.S. Representative for Missouri’s 4th congressional district from 1977 to 2011).

A number of symptoms are associated with heart failure, but none is specific for the condition. Perhaps the best known symptom is short of breath (called dyspnea). In heart failure, this may result from excess fluid in the lungs. The breathing difficulties may occur at rest or during exercise. In some cases, congestion may be severe enough to interrupt or prevent you from sleeping.

-Fatigue or easy tiring is another common symptom. As the heart’s pumping capacity decreases, muscles and other tissues receive less oxygen and nutrition, which are carried in the blood. Without proper fuel (oxygen from the blood) provided by our engine (the heart), the body cannot perform as much work as it use to do (just like going from in shape to out of shape in time). The ending line is this will result into fatigue.

-Fluid accumulation will cause swelling in the feet, ankles, legs, and occasionally the abdomen (if the fluid building up in the body gets severe), what we medically call edema.   Through gravity the blood goes backwards and our body allows water to transfer in the skin to allow the fluid to go somewhere other than the bloodstream to decrease fluid overload to the heart by compensating. It body compensates since the blood is going backwards from the heart causing fluid back up. Excess fluid retained by the body will result into weight gain, which sometimes occurs fairly quickly (if you have CHF already you should always call your M.D. if you weight gain is 3lbs or more in a week, odds are high this is due to fluid building up).

-Persistent coughing is another common sign, especially coughing that regularly produces mucus or pink, blood-tinged sputum. Some people develop raspy breathing or wheezing.

-Heart failure usually goes through a slow development process, the symptoms may not appear until the condition has progressed over the years. This happens because the heart first compensates by making adjustments with the heart that delay or slow down but do not prevent, the eventual loss in pumping capacity. In time failure happens, just like a car in when it gets older over several years is starts showing one problem after another and is exchanged for a newer car; same principle with the heart in that you show signs and symptoms as your heart starts to slow down to failure and its either treat the problem or get a transplant of the organ (which is unlikely to happen).  The heart first hides the underlying process but compensates by doing this to your heart:

1- Enlargement to the muscle of the heart (causing “dilatation”) which allows more blood into the heart.

2- Thickening of muscle fibers (causing “hypertrophy”) to strengthen the heart muscle, which allows the heart to contract more forcefully and pump more blood.

3- More frequent contraction, which increases circulation.

By making these adjustments, or compensating, the heart can temporarily make up for losses in pumping ability, sometimes for years. However, compensation of the organ can only last so long, not forever (like anything in life the living thing or an object will go through a ending life process to termination). Eventually the heart cannot offset the lost ability to pump blood, and the signs of heart failure appear.

DIAGNOSIS

In many cases, physicians diagnose heart failure during a simple physical examination. Readily identifiable signs are shortness of breath, fatigue, and swollen ankles and feet. The physician also will check for the presence of risk factors, such as hypertension, obesity and a history of heart problems.

Using a stethoscope, the physician can listen to a patient breathe and identify the sounds of lung congestion. The stethoscope also picks up the abnormal heart sounds indicative of heart failure.

If one or not both symptoms or the patient’s history point to a clear cut diagnosis, the physician may recommend any of a variety of laboratory tests, including, initially, an electrocardiogram (EKG), which uses recording devices placed on the chest to evaluate the electrical activity of a patient’s heartbeat which will be affected by CHF.

Echocardiography is another means of evaluating heart function from outside the body. This works through sound waves that bounce off the heart are recorded and translated into images. The pictures can reveal abnormal heart sizes, shape, and movement. Echocardiography also can be used to calculate a patient’s ejection fraction which is a measurement of the amount of blood pumped when the heart contracts.

Another possible test is the chest x-ray, which also determines the heart’s size and shape, as well as the presence of congestion in the lungs.  The lab blood test performed is called a BNP and if elevated it further helps diagnose for the MD that the patient has CHF BUT the elevation of your BNP alone doesn’t mean you have CHF.

Tests help rule out other possible causes of symptoms. The symptoms of heart failure can result when the heart is made to work too hard, instead of from damaged muscle (like in a heart attack). Conditions that overload the heart occur rarely and include severe anemia and thyrotoxicosis (a disease resulting from an overactive thyroid gland).

Prevention of CHF:

-If not diagnosed yet your already possibly ahead. Without this diagnosis you can get started on making yourself further away from being diagnosed with this disease. How to reach this goal is through living a routine life through healthy habits practiced, healthy dieting over all, and balancing rest with exercise during the week 30-40 minutes a day or 1 hour to 1.5 hours 3 times a week and not being obese. They all would benefit the heart in not stressing it out making the heart’s function harder in doing its function. When the heart stresses out it is at risk for lacking oxygen putting it at potential for angina (heart pain) to a heart attack with over time leading toward failure of the heart. Need to learn more about what is and how to get your weight in therapeutic body mass index range through dieting of all 4 food groups, balancing exercise/rest, and knowing how the body works with all ingredients in foods including portion sizes (fats, calories, starches, carbohydrates, proteins with vitamins and minerals) to understanding how all this information takes effect in how your metabolism operates in being beneficial or against you?   Well than go to healthyusa.tsfl.com and take a peek at what we offer at such a reasonable price and more of a reachable goal with having Dr. Anderson through access of his book “Dr. A’s healthy habits” with me as your personal coach and if you want foods to eat in helping you lose weight if needed I’m there to help you with any questions you may have and even for support. To take a peek go to healthyusa.tsfl.com and see what we offer for no price and with no hacking. Join me and so many others in attempting to reach this goal. So far I have lost 22lbs. and hope to lose more.

“Your body has an amazing ability to make up for heart failure. It may do such a good job that you don’t know you have a disease. But at some point, your heart and body will no longer be able to keep up. Then fluid starts to build up in your body, and you have symptoms like feeling weak and out of breath. ”

WebMD under Heart Failure Health Center

Types of Heart Failure

The term congestive heart failure (CHF) is often used to describe all patients with heart failure. In reality, congestion=the buildup of fluids in the heart for not pumping correctly, just like pipes in a home not working properly=back up of water in the pipes, happens with CHF also to the fluids (blood) backing up in the lungs.   This is just one feature of the condition and does not occur in all patients. There are two main categories of heart failure although within each category, symptoms and effects may differ from patient to patient. The two categories are:

1-Systolic heart failure (systolic is the top number of your blood pressure=the heart at work). This occurs when the heart’s (muscle-myocardium) ability to contract (pump=being active) decreases, particularly starting on the L side of the heart where the muscle of the heart is greatest (myocardium=heart muscle). The heart cannot pump blood with enough force to push a sufficient amount out of the heart into the circulation through the aorta. The aorta is a artery (vessel) that leaves the L lower chamber of the heart (left side of the heart=highly oxygenated rich blood). Due to the heart not using enough force pushing the blood forward in the aorta this causes the blood to back up and cause it to go back up into the L lower to the L upper chamber that goes further back up into the pulmonary vein into the lungs=congestion in the lungs due to the heart failure.

2-Diastolic heart failure (diastolic is the bottom number of your blood pressure which is the pressure when the heart is at rest). This failure occurs when the heart has a problem relaxing. The heart cannot properly fill with blood because the muscle of the heart due to trying so hard to compensate over a long period of time with disease (ex. High B/P, Obesity, etc…) strains the heart in doing its function that failure finally starts that the muscle of the heart (myocardium) becomes stiff. This causes the heart to lose its ability to relax to allow proper filling of the heart in upper and lower chambers=back up of the blood.   This failure starts on the right side of the heart causing the blood to back up away from the heart and may lead this blood that is highly concentrated with carbon dioxide to accumulation especially in the feet, ankles and legs. Some patients may have lung congestion.

Doctors usually classify patients’ heart failure according to the severity of their symptoms. The table below describes the most commonly used classification system, the New York Heart Association (NYHA) Functional Classification. It places patients in one of four categories based on how much they are limited during physical activity. Here are how the classes are defined based on symptoms.

Causes of Heart Failure:

As stated, the heart loses some of its blood pumping ability as a natural consequence of aging. How- ever, a number of other factors can lead to a potentially life-threatening loss of pumping activity.

As a symptom of underlying heart disease, heart failure is closely associated with the major risk factors for coronary heart disease: smoking, high cholesterol levels, hypertension (persistent high blood pressure), diabetes= abnormal blood sugar levels, and obesity. A person can change or eliminate those risk factors and thus lower their risk of developing or aggravating their heart disease and heart failure through healthy habits performed routinely, proper dieting, and balancing rest with exercise.

Among prominent risk factors, hypertension-HTN (high blood pressure) and diabetes are PARTICULARLY IMPORTANT. Uncontrolled HTN increases the risk of heart failure by 200 %, compared to those who do not have hypertension.   Moreover, the degree of risk appears directly related to the severity of the high blood pressure.

Persons with diabetes have about a two to eight fold greater risk of heart failure than those without diabetes. Women with diabetes have a greater risk of heart failure than men with diabetes. Part of the risk comes from the diabetes association with other risk factors for heart disease such as high cholesterol or obesity or other risk factors. However, the disease process of diabetes also damages the heart muscle.

The presence of coronary disease is among the greatest risks for heart failure. Muscle damage and scarring caused by a heart attack greatly increase the risk of heart failure. Cardiac arrhythmias, or irregular heartbeats, also raise heart failure risk. Any disorder that causes abnormal swelling or thickening of the heart sets the stage for heart failure.

In some people, heart failure arises from problems with heart valves, the flap-like structures that help regulate blood flow through the heart. Infections in the heart are another source of increased risk for heart failure.

A single risk factor may be sufficient to cause heart failure, but a combination of factors dramatically increases the risk. Advanced age adds to the potential impact of any heart failure risk.

Finally, genetic abnormalities contribute to the risk for certain types of heart disease, which in turn may lead to heart failure. However, in most instances, a specific genetic link to heart failure has not been identified.

SO LIVE AS HEALTHY AS POSSIBLE IN YOUR ROUTINE HABITS, YOUR DIETING OF THE 4 FOOD GROUPS, MAINTAINING YOUR WEIGHT IN A THEREPEUTIC RANGE (look as calculating BMI online for free to find out what your weight range for your height is), and BALANCING REST WITH EXERCISE TO HELP DECREASE THE CHANCE OF GETTING HEART FAILURE. Go to healthyusa.tsfl.com to learn what Dr. Anderson through his book of “Dr. A.’s Healthy Habits” and me as your health coach could provide you within a reachable cost. To just view what can be offered to you for no price with no hacking go to healthyusa.tsfl.com and take a peek;)

“Around 1% of people under 65 years of age have heart failure, but 7% of 75-84 year olds have heart failure and this increases to 15% in people older than 85. It is the most common cause of hospitalisation in patients over 65 years of age.”

MontifioreHeartCenter