Almost everybody is aware of the dangerous link that smoking has with diseases such as cancer, but are you conscious of its connection with diabetes?
Cigarettes contain more than 4000 chemical compounds and at least 400 toxic substances.
Everyone risks damaging their health through smoking a cigarette, pipe or cigar, but for people with diabetes the risk may be even greater. If you have diabetes you already have an increased chance of developing cardiovascular disease, such as a heart attack, stroke or circulatory problems in the legs. Combine this with smoking (which can also double your risk of complications) and you make the chances of developing these diseases even higher.
Smoking:
- when you have diabetes can make it more likely that you will develop neuropathy (nerve damage), nephropathy (kidney damage) and retinopathy (eye damage).
- decreases the amount of oxygen reaching the tissues of the body, which can lead to a heart attack or stroke.
- increases your LDL (low density 'bad' lipids) cholesterol level and lowers HDL (high density 'good' lipoproteins). This can make blood cells stick together, which can attract cholesterol and fats to stick to the artery walls making it more difficult for blood to circulate. This can damage and constrict (narrow) the blood vessels of the body (known as atherosclerosis) or cause a clot to form and possibly break away to travel round the body leading to a heart attack, stroke, peripheral vascular disease or worsening of foot and leg ulcers.
- increases your blood pressure by releasing adrenaline which causes blood vessels to constrict and the heart to beat faster.
- raises blood glucose levels. This is probably due to the nicotine and other products involved in smoking which may cause insulin resistance (whereby insulin doesn't work properly) and stimulate stress hormones that can increase glucose levels.
So, like maintaining good blood glucose control, eating well, taking regular exercise and keeping to a healthy weight, giving up smoking is one of the most beneficial things you can do for your future health.