We all know that smoking is bad for you for a variety of reasons from bad breath to cancer.
But if you’ve got diabetes, it’s a bit like playing the old game of Russian roulette – the only difference is that you’re adding an extra couple of bullets to the six shooter before pulling the trigger.
Here’s just a fraction of what you can look forward to:
Squeeze The Life Out Of Them
Consider smoking’s effect on the circulatory system. Turns out that carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke destroys the slippery cell layer inside your blood vessels allowing fat and plaque to build up on vessel walls. And worse yet, the nicotine in cigarettes accelerates this process.
Of course as vessels get smaller, blood flow becomes more and more restricted, and the nutrients and oxygen vital to the health of your nerve endings gets cut off.
These are the same nerve endings that are already being damaged by the high blood sugar levels characteristic of diabetes. The same nerve endings that cause numbness in the feet and hands often called « diabetic neuropathy ».
Unfortunately, the feet are generally affected first and can lead to infection, sores, ulcerations, and in some cases – amputation.
Wheel Chairs Can Be Fun
Imagine trying to bend, walk, climb stairs or even wave goodbye to someone and feeling a searing pain in your joints as you do so. In fact, you’ll double your risk of this being your daily companion if you’re a smoker and a diabetic.
Urinating Through A Tube
Remember when you learned that diabetes can damage your kidneys? Guess what?
The nicotine in cigarettes can too!
Although the exact mechanism linking smoking and kidney disease is unknown, a study done by the American Physiological Society has shown that the mesagnial cells in the blood vessels of the kidney may interact with nicotine to further promote kidney disease.
A Plug For Smoking
As if an overdose of blood sugar and nicotine wasn’t bad enough for the interior of your vessels, research has also shown that the outer muscular wall can be affected by nicotine causing high blood pressure – thus increasing your risk of dying from heart disease nearly 300%.
Furthermore, it’s not hard to visualize the plaque that’s building up on the inside of your veins and arteries as acting like a plug, cutting off oxygen and vital nutrients that keep the cells in your heart alive.
Do you suppose that a lethal cocktail of nicotine and high blood sugar is what they mean when they say heartless?
Cholesterol Controlled Chaos
According to the American Heart Association, diabetics are much more likely to have cardiovascular, disease -producing, cholesterol abnormalities that lead to heart disease. Not only that, but smoking can increase your overall cholesterol levels making the problem even worse.
Nature’s Final Cruel Irony
So after all that, can you guess what the #1 best thing is about being a smoker and a diabetic?
That’s right!
Smoking further increases your blood sugar levels!
Ta-da!
Nature’s final cruel irony revealed.
So if you’re trying to lower your blood sugar levels, consider losing your cigarettes once and for all.
For more information about minimizing the effects of your diabetes or possibly eliminating it altogether, visit the following website:
Connexes Roulette Articles
