How Nicotine Affects Your Circulatory System

Were you aware of the fact that during a 2021 survey conducted in the United States, the results showed that roughly 22% of people aged 12 and older have used nicotine in the past 30 days? That is almost a quarter of the entire population of the United States, and it is a concerning statistic.

What makes this statistic even more concerning is the fact that, as decades of research have proven time and time again, nicotine is a substance that is both highly addictive, as well as potentially very dangerous, in particular to the good health and function of our cardiovascular system.

In this article, we will take a deeper look at just exactly how nicotine affects your circulatory system, and why it does so, in order to paint a clearer picture of the risks associated with nicotine consumption.

What Nicotine Is

Before we can move on to talking about how nicotine affects your circulatory system, we first need to understand a bit about what nicotine actually is. It’s hard to figure out why and how a substance affects us the way it does without understanding what that particular substance is and what properties it has.

Nicotine is an alkaloid that is naturally produced by a number of plants, most commonly the tobacco plant. It has stimulant as well as anxiolytic properties when ingested.

Today, nicotine is seeing use as a recreational substance in a multitude of ways, some of them being through the smoking of cigarettes, e-cigarettes and vape products, chewing tobacco, nicotine patches, nicotine gum, etc..

As early as the late 17th century (1600s), nicotine extract was being used in agricultural settings as a pesticide and insecticide, due to its toxic properties which made its use in that area favorable.

A highly addictive chemical, nicotine addiction manifests itself through physical and psychological dependence and desensitization, and a buildup of tolerance towards the substance as time goes on (which means the user feels the need to ingest more of the substance in order to achieve the same effects as before).

Suddenly stopping using nicotine when one is addicted to it can lead to nicotine withdrawal symptoms, which include a lowered/depressed mood, headaches, stomach problems, increased irritability, insomnia, and more.

Drug-reinforced behavioral patterns, compulsive ingestion of the substance and relapse after quitting use of the substance are the three main ways in which nicotine addiction works on the human psyche.

Now that we know more about the substance itself, let’s look at how nicotine affects your circulatory system.

How Nicotine Affects Your Circulatory System

First and foremost, nicotine’s immediate effect is increasing the heart rate. This is due to nicotine triggering the release of epinephrine (adrenaline) from the adrenal gland. This increased heart rate can lead to the heart muscles tiring over time, and can result in damage to the heart.

Nicotine also has vasoconstrictor properties, meaning that it causes narrowing of the blood vessels in our bodies, namely the veins and arteries. When the veins and arteries become narrower, blood has a harder time flowing through them, resulting in elevated levels of blood pressure.

In addition to the above, nicotine also contributes to a diminished oxygen supply to the tissue, as it causes carbon monoxide levels in the blood to increase, which lowers the capacity of blood cells to transport oxygen to where it is needed in the body.

Buildup of plaque, in the form of fatty deposits, on the walls of the arteries and veins is also at a higher risk of occurring in nicotine users. This condition is known as atherosclerosis medically, and can exacerbate the issues caused by narrower blood vessels.

Platelets are more likely to stick together, and platelet production in the body tends to be increased by the ingestion of nicotine, which means the risk of developing blood clots in the veins and arteries is higher in people who use nicotine than it is in the general population.

Nicotine may also lead to a condition known as insulin resistance, where cells in the body end up becoming not as responsive to insulin, which may result in type 2 diabetes, which is a huge potential problem for the cardiovascular system.

With all of this being said, nicotine use can lead to a lot of serious, potentially fatal issues. Given the facts listed above, nicotine can most certainly lead to very serious medical emergencies such as heart attacks and strokes.

The narrowing of the blood vessels by itself is already problematic, putting undue extra strain on the heart and reducing the amount of blood supply that can reach the rest of our body at any given time. This can already lead to dangerous conditions and irreparable organ damage.

When this is combined with other potential risks associated with nicotine use, such as plaque buildup on the walls of our blood vessels, blood flow to certain areas of our bodies may become fully blocked off, which may lead to suffering strokes and heart attacks, or end up requiring amputation in the case of blood flow to a limb or extremity being interrupted and leading to gangrene (death of the tissue due to lack of blood flow).

In addition to all of this, the increased heart rate, in combination with narrower and blocked or partially blocked blood vessels, may cause these blood vessels to rupture, causing internal bleeding which, depending on the area that it occurs, may very well prove fatal.

Conclusion

Nicotine is a dangerous substance that can wreck our circulatory system, especially with prolonged and repeated exposure.

It is important to be aware of the dangers of any substance we put into our bodies, and make the right decisions when it comes to preserving our good health. Good health should never be traded for a vice, especially one that has virtually zero positive effects on our lives in order for it to be worth even considering the trade-offs.

Thank you for reading this article, and I wish you a safe and healthy life ahead of you.