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Effects of smoking on blood pressure

August 27, 2008 by Andy · 4 Comments 

In this blood pressure experiments, I used a home blood pressure monitor (upper arm cuff), to measure my blood pressure before, during and after smoking a large cigar. I took readings every 5 minutes or so, to see if smoking would cause changes to my blood pressure.

Incidentally, I am not a doctor. These experiments are for my own curiosity, and I do not recommend you do the same.

Here are my results:

Time
Upper (systolic)
Lower (diastolic)
10:56 134 86
10:58 136 82
11:04 130 81
STARTED SMOKING THE CIGAR AT THIS POINT
11:07 149 92
11:12 142 91
11:17 144 89
11:22 146 91
11:26 140 89
11:30 130 87
11:34 135 86
11:38 138 89
11:44 136 92
11:50 136 93
11:53 134 91
FINISHED SMOKING CIGAR HERE
11:59 136 92
12:06 135 90
12:11 130 86
12:16 133 87

Here is the chart of this data:

smokingbloodpressure

While the graph may not look too impressive, you can see a large jump in blood pressure almost immediately. Before starting to smoke the cigar, the average blood pressure for the three preceding readings was 133/83. The first reading after starting to smoke was 149/92. That’s quite a jump.

The initial increase in blood pressure is spectacularly quick. Not surprising really, as smoke enters our bodies through the thin membranes of the lungs, as well as through the membranes in our mouth. This is why smokers can get a neat instant “hit” when they light up.

Blood pressure is raised for about 20 minutes before it returns back down to a more normal reading (that’s normal for me). When there is a stimulus to increase blood pressure, our bodies are going to try to combat that increase and lower the blood pressure. In this case it took about 20 minutes for my body to do so. Blood pressure then remained fairly constant for the remainder of the experiment.

It would be interesting to see how blood pressure would be affected if I continued to smoke all day (as in a chain smoker), and whether my body could compensate over a long period of time. I wont, however, be doing that experiment ;o)

Look out for new experiments soon. You’ll find them in the left hand menu.

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