Smoking and vascular disease

Smoking can increase the incidence of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. Tobacco contains nicotine, which has a toxic effect on the human body, smoking will nicotine inhaled into the body, prompting the adrenal glands to release a large number of catecholamines, so that vascular spasm, heart rate increases, blood pressure rises. On the other hand, due to the increased secretion of adrenaline, can make the blood cholesterol increased, the cell gap increased, fat deposits form atherosclerosis. In addition, the smoke of smoking contains carbon monoxide, the concentration of which can reach 3-5%, which is absorbed into the blood through the lungs and can combine with the hemoglobin of red blood cells to form carboxyhemoglobin. Carboxyhemoglobin lost the ability to carry oxygen, which will make the oxygen content of the blood is greatly reduced, lack of oxygen can reduce the elasticity of blood vessels, there is also nicotine in tobacco can promote the aggregation of red blood cells, white blood cell deposition, so that the blood viscosity increases, blood flow slows down, so it is easy to cause vascular thrombosis. For example, thrombo-occlusive vasculitis, most of the patients have a long history of smoking, the lesions involve the whole layer of blood vessels, resulting in luminal narrowing and occlusion, causing inflammation of small and medium-sized arteries and veins, the typical clinical manifestations are intermittent claudication, resting pain, etc. The disease causes pain due to limb ischemia, and in severe cases, ulcers or even gangrene may occur at the extremities that do not heal easily, which may lead to permanent functional impairment or limb loss, or even death. Comprehensive domestic and foreign data, thrombo-occlusive vasculitis patients accounted for 60-95% of smokers. Clinical observation shows that smoking cessation can make patients with thrombo-occlusive vasculitis relieved, and smoking again can make the disease worse. Smoking cessation is often the first thing that physicians caution patients about during treatment. Patients often have doubts about whether they really want to quit smoking, such as patients think that quitting is a painful process, want to slowly quit or less smoking; or think that other smokers have not got this vascular disease, thinking about whether tobacco will be one of the causes; or do not know enough about the disease, think it is not necessary to quit smoking; or think that tobacco can relieve stress or sleepiness, work and life are inseparable, etc., these will affect the enthusiasm of patients to quit smoking These may affect patients’ enthusiasm to quit. Studies have shown that smoking less does not reduce the occurrence of vascular disease, and quitting is the only effective way. Quitting smoking is not only good for healthy people, but also for people who may already have smoking-related diseases. There are many ways to quit smoking, the main ones are: 1, psychological win, smokers really recognize the harm of smoking to their own body and the impact on the health of family members, especially children, and use their will and perseverance to resist the addiction in order to quit smoking. 2, divert attention, whenever the patient wants to smoke, can be appropriate to do other work or exercise, etc., to relieve the current stress or awareness of tension, shift the goal. 3, acupuncture, quit smoking candy, quit smoking tea, etc. with the role of the use of some alternatives to replace tobacco. 4, drugs, bupropion can help to quit smoking, to be used under the guidance of a doctor or professional. 5, smoking cessation clinics, there are now some hospitals opened smoking cessation clinics, can help smokers under the guidance of professionals for effective smoking cessation.