If you haven’t already heard, smoking is bad for your health and while there’s a wide range of risks to your well-being long-term, your organs physically take a huge beating. That being said, as bad as smoking is for the average person, it’s fatally worse for those who are diabetic, raising their sugar levels, causing heart and blood vessel damage, and even putting their vision in jeopardy. So, if you haven’t taken the time to learn about how smoking combustible cigarettes affects diabetes, please continue to read. We won’t be sugarcoating any of the facts!
Smoking raises your blood sugar
As a diabetic or even a pre-diabetic, you’re already having to watch your blood sugar levels to ensure that they’re properly managed, and those who are heavy smokers are faced with more challenges. The reality is that cigarette smoke contains an assortment of toxic ingredients that have the power to change your cells’ ability to use insulin. It’s a real problem when your body’s cells become insulin resistant, as they will then be unable to transform the glucose from your blood into conformable energy. Moreover, if high glucose levels remain in your blood, your sugar levels will spike, leading to detrimental damage to your kidneys, nerves, and eyes. So, regardless if you’re a type 1 or type 2 diabetic, if you want to avoid significant organ damage due to high sugar levels, it’s important to consider methods that will help you to decrease your smoking habits.
Smoking causes heart and blood vessel damage
Long-term exposure to combustible cigarettes has been proven to cause severe damage to your cardiovascular system and unlike diabetes, smoking is something that’s within your control. That’s why so many smokers have difficulty breathing, often wheezing during activities that require moderate levels of energy.
If you’re someone who has diabetes, you’re already two to four times more likely to develop heart disease or have a stroke than people who don’t possess the condition and when you smoke those odds are heightened drastically. In fact, inhaling the high nicotine levels that are found within combustible cigarettes causes your blood vessels to constrict and narrow, limiting the amount of blood that can flow to your organs. These changes to the structure and functioning of the vessels increase your blood pressure and put tension on the heart, causing it to work harder. That’s part of the reason why the risk of cardiovascular disease is so high in smokers.
Smoking damages your eyes
Diabetics possess a high risk for several eye diseases, including cataracts and glaucoma and if their condition is not properly controlled, it can also lead to blindness. However, when you smoke you increase your risk of macular degeneration which can eventually lead you to the same result, sight loss. So, when you combine smoking with diabetes, you’re creating a result that’s both destructive to your vision and overall eye health.
What can you do to lower your risk?
If you want to lower your risk of smoking-related complications you will need to quit smoking. Of course, that’s easier said than done, but there are many ways to use nicotine replacement therapies to kick your addictive cravings.
- An e-cig starter kit is one of the most successful alternative smoking methods, allowing the ex-smoker to quit gradually by decreasing their nicotine concentration levels over time.
- Nicotine chewing gum decreases your withdrawal symptoms and substitutes as an oral activity.
- The nicotine patch attaches to your skin like an adhesive bandage, delivering a small, constant amount of nicotine through to your bloodstream.
If you currently smoke, recognizing the benefits of quitting is your first crucial step. So, whether your way to lower your nicotine consumption rests with an e-cig starter kit, nicotine gum or the patch, if you’re diabetic, it’s important to find the smoking cessation aid that will help to lower your risk of developing many health problems. After all, since you’ve already been forced to make changes to your eating habits, making changes to your smoking habits should naturally follow suit.
What did you learn about diabetes and the effects of smoking? Drop a comment below to share an engaging conversation.
