The Smoking Facts on Heart Disease
Statistics About the Harmful Smoking Effects on Heart Health

The smoking facts on heart disease gathered through research in the last 50 years are now conclusive.

50 years of Research on the Harmful Smoking Effects on the Heart

By the early 1960's the scientific evidence was starting to accumulate that cigarette smoking was associated with the alarming rise in the number of deaths related to heart disease.

While epidemiologists were repeatedly finding that patients with heart disease were most likely to also be smokers, the actual mechanism by which this took place was not known. Therefore it could not be formally stated that smoking causes heart disease.

After many decades of marketing by the tobacco companies convincing the public that cigarettes were a socially acceptable and desirable pleasure that provided stress relief and relaxation, the smoking facts on heart disease were not welcomed.

In 1964 after a review of the scientific evidence the SMOKING and HEALTH Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General was released in the USA.

The conclusion in the cardiovascular section was stated this way:

That statement represented an informed conclusion after review of the known literature and scientific study at the time.

In contrast 40 years later the 2004 US Surgeon General's report concludes:

We have come a long way in understanding how smoking causes heart disease because smoking has been widely studied. There is probably is no other substance or lifestyle factor that has been subjected to as much rigorous and continuous study as the effects of smoking cigarettes.

The results of all that study has provided us with an immense amount of data on the harmful smoking effects on the body. One of the most profound and devastating smoking effects is the way that it harms cardiovascular health.

Smoking Facts on Heart Disease

• in Canada someone dies from heart disease every seven minutes. In the USA there is 1 death every 33 seconds.


• Among the smoking related diseases, coronary heart disease is the most common cause of death.


• The cost of heart disease alone surpasses any amount governments collect through tobacco taxation. In Canada heart disease and stroke create a financial burden of over $18 billion every year in direct and indirect costs associated with physician services, hospital costs, lost wages and decreased productivity. In the USA the CDC estimates these costs to be $503 billion for 2010.

• the risk of developing heart disease increases with the amount smoked and the length of time spent smoking. In other words a heavy smoker is more likely to develop heart disease at a younger age.


• At the rate of smoking 40 cigarettes per day, the risk of dying from heart disease is up to 300% greater in smokers that non-smokers.


• Smokers have a 70% increased risk of dying from heart disease that non-smokers.


• One of the harmful smoking effects is sudden cardiac death in both men and women.


• In the US an estimated 935,000 heart attacks occur each year. In Canada the number is 70,000 per year.

...and on it goes. The smoking facts on heart disease have been rolling in for over half a century and it is now known and accepted that cigarette smoking causes heart disease.

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