Smoking significantly ups your odds of having a heart attack; within a year or two of quitting, your risk decreases substantially.
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Smoking ups your risk for heart disease by decreasing the flow of oxygen to the heart and raises your risk for atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. Lighting up also damages the cells that line the coronary arteries and increases your likelihood of blood clots. In fact, heart-related complications are one of the main reasons cigarettes can take so much time off a smoker's lifespan.
But there's good news: Once you quit, your risk for heart disease is substantially reduced within one to two years. Smoking is the single most preventable cause of death, and putting out your butts significantly brings down your risk for heart disease.
Interactive tool: How does smoking increase your risk of heart attack?
Click here to find out how much smoking increases your heart attack risk.
This interactive tool measures how smoking—independent of other risk factors—affects your chance of having a heart attack in the next 10 years. The tool uses the values you enter to calculate your risk. The information is based on the Framingham Heart Study. During the past 50 years, the Framingham Heart Study has studied the progression of heart disease and the risk factors of heart disease. The data were then developed into a risk assessment by the U.S. National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP), part of the National Institutes of Health.
The values you enter include your age and gender. The tool uses a systolic blood pressure of 120 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg), an HDL cholesterol measurement of 55 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL), and a total cholesterol measurement of 200 mg/dL to calculate your risk based on smoking alone.
In the real world, smoking has some additional negative effect on both cholesterol and blood pressure. If you smoke and also have other risk factors for heart disease, your risk may be higher than this tool says it is.
Click here to find out how much smoking increases your heart attack risk.
This interactive tool measures how smoking—independent of other risk factors—affects your chance of having a heart attack in the next 10 years. The tool uses the values you enter to calculate your risk. The information is based on the Framingham Heart Study. During the past 50 years, the Framingham Heart Study has studied the progression of heart disease and the risk factors of heart disease. The data were then developed into a risk assessment by the U.S. National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP), part of the National Institutes of Health.
The values you enter include your age and gender. The tool uses a systolic blood pressure of 120 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg), an HDL cholesterol measurement of 55 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL), and a total cholesterol measurement of 200 mg/dL to calculate your risk based on smoking alone.
In the real world, smoking has some additional negative effect on both cholesterol and blood pressure. If you smoke and also have other risk factors for heart disease, your risk may be higher than this tool says it is.
Last Updated: November 24, 2006 
