30-Day Countdown to Quit Smoking

Day 28

You’ll decrease your risk of heart disease and heart attack

Smokers are at two to four times greater risk of developing coronary heart disease as nonsmokers. Cigarette smokers with coronary heart disease are also at twice the risk for sudden cardiac death as nonsmokers with coronary heart disease.

Smoking ups your risk for heart disease by decreasing the flow of oxygen to the heart, and it 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 life span.

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