Introduction
In this report I will be investigating the most vital organ within our bodies our hearts, also the importance of maintaining a healthy blood pressure reading and how smoking does affect your blood pressure. (Please refer to the appendix to see a diagram of the heart).
The term blood pressure refers to the physical pressure of the blood flowing through the arteries. This depends on the force created by the pumping of the heart, the volume of circulating blood and the size of the blood vessels. The body must keep blood pressure inside fairly strict limits. It must be high enough to force blood through all the capillaries so that all the cells of the body are well nourished, but not too high because this would make the heart worker unnecessarily hard and risk of damage to the blood vessels. High blood pressure is a risk factor for atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). (Boyle M, P191, 2002)
There is thousands and thousands of people that smoke every day in the Great Britain, some are just casual smokers maybe they just smoke when they are out on a night out or socialising with other smokers and others may even smoke 40+ day out of habit, but are they truly aware of what they do by just lighting one cigarette.
Tobacco smoke contains more than 4,000 chemicals; many of them are known poisons. Nicotine increases blood pressure, which makes our hearts work harder. Carbon monoxide makes the heart beat faster and takes the place of oxygen in the blood. Tar in tobacco contains dozens of chemicals that cause cancer. Smoking adds to the artery-clogging process that can lead to a heart attack, stroke and peripheral vascular disease. It over works the heart and reduces the oxygen supply, making clots in the blood vessels and increases the risk of potentially fatal changes in the heart beat. If you smoke you have a 70 per cent greater risk of death from coronary heart disease than non-smokers. You also have an increase of having a heart attack by two to six times.
Hypothesis
My hypothesis is that smoking effects your blood pressure and it can have not only a short term effect on our heart and circulation system but if continued for a long period of time it will have a lasting effect on us and how blood pressure is affected at different times of the day.
Methodology
I prepared a questionnaire to gain some facts on the individuals that have taken part in my research, (Please refer to appendix to see the questionnaires that have been completed) also I wrote a document in order to gain consent from the individuals that took part in my investigations, giving me permission to use their personal information in this report they are all advised of other individuals having access to this information given and recorded. (Please refer to the appendix to see the consent forms and the questionnaires that have been completed.)
The individuals that have recorded their blood pressure are smokers and non-smokers they will take their blood pressure three times in a morning and three times on an evening to enable me to gain an average reading of their individual blood pressure. Each reading will be taken a minute apart, which should allow the blood flow to return to normal to get more accurate results from each of the readings.
For the individuals that are smokers they will take three readings in a morning again a minute apart before a cigarette and then repeat the process after a cigarette again to give me an average reading. The reading will be taken over a three day period to see if there is a difference on separate days and to give a clearer indication of the differences in blood pressure. The readings will also be taken at the same time every morning and evening. The raw data and graphs can be found on pages .For the manipulated data please refer to appendix .
Please refer to appendix to see diagram of how to measure blood pressure.
Please refer to page