Does quitting smoking cause your heart to heal?
Although quitting smoking causes the body to recover itself, smoking damages the heart and deteriorates general health. Even when you stop smoking and recover completely, it still takes a while for your body to fully recover.
In order to determine how long it takes for the heart to repair after quitting smoking, 5.3 million smokers in South Korea participated in a recent study headed by Seung Yong Shin, MD, PhD, of Korea University Ansan Hospital.
The idea that not all smoking histories are the same is addressed in the study. After quitting, people take their own time to recover. It may take years for some people and decades for others.
The study was carried out by thoroughly examining the medical data of 5,391,231 South Koreans, the majority of whom were men and whose average age was 45.8 years.
Heart attacks, strokes, and heart failure were among the medical issues that were documented for these patients, who were followed for an average of 4.2 years. Records were also kept of their smoking history, daily cigarette consumption, and smoking cessation date.