Remarkable Habits That Improve Heart Health

Stop Smoking

Regular smokers can improve and maintain the health of their heart if they stop smoking. Not only does cigarette smoke contain nicotine, but it also contains thousands of other chemicals and compounds, such as carbon monoxide and tar. These chemicals are known to encourage the accumulation of a fatty substance, plaque, in the arteries. These chemicals do this by causing damage and injury to the walls of the blood vessels, adversely affecting cholesterol, and interfering with normal levels of fibrinogen, a substance involved in the blood clotting process. Smoking cigarettes increases an individual's heart rate continuously, which makes their heart work harder than it would otherwise. The chemicals in cigarette smoke also cause the walls of the main arteries in the body to contract, tighten, and stiffen. An individual who is a regular smoker and has other cardiac risk factors has at least a thirty percent higher chance of developing heart disease than a non-smoker.

Keep reading for more information on what habits are healthy for the heart now.