Smoking is bad for everyone. It increases your risk for lung cancer, heart attack and stroke, and each year, 45,000 Canadians die of smoking-related illnesses. But people with diabetes face an even greater risk from smoking: just like high blood glucose levels, the noxious chemicals in cigarette smoke attack blood vessels, accelerating atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and impairing the blood’s ability to carry oxygen to the tissues.
Together, the deadly combination of high blood glucose and smoking dramatically increase damage to the blood vessels that feed the heart, brain, eyes, kidneys and peripheral nerves, speeding up the long-term complications of diabetes. People with diabetes are already at increased risk for heart disease; however, if they smoke, they face three times the risk for heart attack of a person with diabetes who does not smoke.
