Tobacco And Your Heart: Can Weight Gain After Quitting Be Harmful?
This week I am sharing with you a guest post provided by Lisa Redmond.
If we’re all brutally honest there are perhaps certain habits we all have that we know are bad for us, yet continue to carry on with them regardless. It may be drinking to excess frequently, indulging in foods that we recognize aren’t the most healthy dietary choices, or it could be smoking, whether it is done socially or regularly, every day. May 31st saw in World No Tobacco Day and this may well have been the incentive for a lot of people to finally ditch nicotine and reduce their risk of a heart attack, stroke or cancer. What sometimes puts people off stopping is a worry that they will gain weight and not be able to successfully shed the pounds once they quit, but a new study published in the Journal of American Medicine has put that theory to bed once and for all.
Quit smoking for good
The study, carried out by JAMA was done intensively over a period of thirty years from 1981 to 2011 – with the results being published in March this year. It involved over three thousand participants. The results of the scientists’ work showed that people who had chosen to give up smoking and had successfully managed to keep off nicotine for four or more years reduced their risk of having either a heart attack or stroke by as much as 54%, significantly higher than those people who carried on smoking, but knowing the risks. Similarly, those smokers who had recently quit and had managed to keep away from cigarettes, cigars or pipes for up to four years also had a 53% decreased chance of suffering the same complaints compared to those who carried on.
These results were a surprise given that many of the participants of the study typically gained anything between 5-10lbs during the period they quit. Speaking of the results, Dr James Meig who is based at Harvard University and is one of the co-authors of the study commented that “We can now say without question that stopping smoking has a very positive effect on cardiovascular risk, even if they experience moderate weight gain”.
Weight gain, smoking and your heart health
What Bad Habits Are Increasing Your Heart Disease Risk?
Annually, the American Heart Association (AHA), Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and National Institutes of Health (NIH) publish the latest statistics for heart disease and stroke. The most recent updates found deaths due to cardiovascular disease actually decreased by 33% over the past 10 years and deaths due to stroke were reduced 37%.
This goes to show that a significant amount of progress has been made to improve outcomes for those who suffer heart attacks and strokes. Great news!
What’s not so good news are the increasing risk factors of US adults making them more likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke. Did you know 68% of US adults are overweight or obese? Did you know 32% of children are overweight and 17% of children obese? And according to the AHA, CDC, and NIH, 33% of US adults do no engage in any aerobic leisure time physical activity. If you look around, it’s not so hard to believe that a majority of US adults are overweight and sedentary. Where do you fall?
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