Smoking and High Blood Pressure

Smoking and High Blood Pressure
Smoking is not a cause of high blood pressure, but it enormously increases the risks associated with it. If you have high blood pressure already, then if you also smoke you are three times more likely to have heart attack than non smokers if you are less than 50 years old, and twice as likely to have one if you are over 50. Heart attacks in people under 45, and in women at all ages, happen much more frequently in smokers.

Smoking is a powerful risk factor in its own right, not only for coronary heart disease and stroke, but also for cancer of the mouth, nose, throat, lung, bladder and pancreas, and for asthma and other lung diseases. Unlike all other risk factors, it also affects your colleagues, family and friends (through passive smoking and the example you set to your children) and it costs as lot of money you could spend better in other ways.
Smoking and High Blood Pressure