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     Health Consequences of Smoking - Heart Disease
     Smoking has long been recognized as a major risk factor in cardiovascular disease, the risk being greater the more one smokes. As previously discussed, the carbon monoxide present in cigarette smoke binds to hemoglobin in the blood, making fewer molecules available for oxygen transport. In addition, coronary blood flow is reduced, forcing the heart to work harder to deliver oxygen to the body. Such strain places smokers at significantly greater risk for myocardial infarction, or heart attack, and stroke. There are, however, regional differences in the incidence of smoking-related cardiovascular disease.
     In China, for example, where smoking rates have increased steadily since the 1970s and about 63 percent of adult males smoke (as opposed to 4 percent of adult females), cardiovascular disease makes up a much smaller percentage of smoking-related deaths than in the United States and Europe, where it accounts for approximately 30 to 40 percent of all tobacco-caused deaths. After quitting, a smoker's risk for cardiovascular disease falls faster than the risk for lung cancer, with reductions in risk evident within one year of cessation
     http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-242795/smoking

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