Smoking Raises Or Lowers Blood Pressure: How Nicotine Affects Blood Pressure

2024 Author: Rachel Wainwright | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 07:39

Does smoking raise blood pressure or lower it?

The content of the article:

How does smoking affect a person's pressure
Smoking and high blood pressure
Smoking and low blood pressure
The effect of smoking on the body
Video

Smoking increases blood pressure - it's a common knowledge. The first recommendation that a hypertensive person hears from a doctor is to quit smoking. But if you ask people who smoke, for what purpose they do it, then in most cases they will answer - to relax. It is not for nothing that a short break in work for the purpose of rest is called a smoke break. But relaxation provides a hypotensive, that is, a pressure-reducing effect. So does smoking lower blood pressure or raise it? Can I smoke with hyper- and hypotension? Let's find out.

Why do smokers claim to relax after smoking when it raises blood pressure?

How does smoking affect a person's pressure

The level of blood pressure (BP) primarily depends on the tone of the blood vessels, viscosity and blood volume. Heart pathologies are also important. Nicotine has no effect on blood volume and viscosity, but significantly affects vascular tone. The result can be instant (comes immediately after a cigarette smoked by a person or even in the process of smoking) and delayed. Immediately after smoking tobacco, blood pressure rises due to narrowing of blood vessels due to the action of nicotine on the corresponding receptors, as a result of which it stimulates the release of adrenaline and norepinephrine.

In addition to nicotine, other constituents of tobacco smoke can also affect the tone of blood vessels. So, menthol leads to some vasodilation, therefore, when smoking menthol cigarettes, there is an alternating effect on the blood vessels of substances that have the opposite effect.

Over time, a person gets used to the changes that occur in the body after smoking a cigarette and does not experience discomfort, however, people who do not smoke after smoking a cigarette often notice headaches, dizziness, nausea, trembling in the limbs, ringing in the ears, and rapid heartbeat.

A significant and stable increase in blood pressure in smokers is often caused by disorders of the vessels, lungs, kidneys and liver, developed under the influence of addiction.

In this case, what is the reason for the relaxing effect of tobacco? Mostly physical and psychological dependence. In people who smoke for a long time, the combustion products of tobacco are built into the metabolism, there is a need to receive them constantly. Their lack leads to abstinence, which is expressed, among other things, increased anxiety and irritability. The intake of the usual dose of nicotine relieves withdrawal symptoms and thereby produces a calming effect - it is something that smokers take for relaxation.

Smoking and high blood pressure

Some high blood pressure smokers report that they feel better after smoking a cigarette, which may give them the false impression that smoking lowers high blood pressure. However, the improvement in well-being is short-lived, it is caused by the release of endorphins and some other substances.

The increase in blood pressure, which occurs in the human body as a result of smoking, is relatively quickly neutralized. However, regular smoking worsens the condition of the vascular wall, makes it rigid and brittle, and contributes to atherosclerotic damage to the blood vessels. Over time, this becomes the cause of the development of hypertension. In turn, high blood pressure, combined with an increasing deterioration in the condition of the blood vessels, often leads to stroke. Smokers are approximately three times more likely to die from stroke than non-smokers. Damage to the coronary vessels supplying the heart muscle causes coronary heart disease, and then its complication - myocardial infarction.

Thus, smoking and hypertension are incompatible, which is why doctors strongly recommend people with arterial hypertension to quit smoking as soon as possible.

Smoking and low blood pressure

Regular smoking causes constant hypoxia, that is, a lack of oxygen in the body. Sometimes this causes the development of coronary chemoreflex (Bezold-Jarisch reflex), in which a reflexive decrease in heart rate and blood pressure occurs.

Despite the fact that smoking increases blood pressure, it does not help people with hypotension to normalize blood pressure for any long period. Deterioration of the state of blood vessels in hypotonic patients leads either to an even greater decrease in pressure, or, on the contrary, to the development of hypertension. In this case, no normalization occurs, since the damaged vessels are not able to perform their functions properly.

Smoking under reduced pressure can cause dizziness, headache, increased weakness, decreased sensitivity to taste, color, smell, or, on the contrary, painful exacerbation.

The effect of smoking on the body

Smoking is a pernicious habit that harms not only the smoker himself, but also those around him who are forced to inhale tobacco smoke.

Tobacco contains nicotine, tar, heavy metals, toluene compounds, hexamine and other toxic substances. Nicotine and some other components of cigarettes impair the absorption of nutrients in the gastrointestinal tract, lead to a decrease in immunity, endocrine disorders.

Smoking is one of the main risk factors for the development of arterial hypertension, and in addition, tobacco belongs to substances with a proven carcinogenic effect (carcinogen of the first category).

Decisive quitting smoking allows you to normalize your health condition for several years

By giving up smoking, a person helps to normalize blood pressure, if this is done before the appearance of pronounced signs of hypertension, the chance of avoiding its development increases.

In the body of people who quit smoking, active processes of restoring normal functions, including the cardiovascular system, are underway for several months. Usually, in 2–5 years, the state of the body returns (or approaches significantly) to the age norms. To speed up this process, it is necessary to support getting rid of the addiction and other healthy measures: practice a healthy diet, ensure regular, but not excessive physical activity, normalize body weight, regulate night sleep.