How Does Khat Affect Your Heart

Khat is a leafy plant used socially in parts of East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, where gatherings built around it can last for hours. Its leaves contain a stimulant called cathinone, which acts on the body in a way that is broadly similar to other stimulants: it raises alertness, makes people more talkative, dulls hunger, and pushes tiredness aside for a while. What is less often talked about is what that stimulation does to the heart. Every time the body is pushed into a state of higher arousal, the heart has to work harder, beat faster, and push blood through vessels at higher pressure. For a healthy heart, a short period of extra work is usually manageable. For a heart that is asked to do it for hours at a time, day after day, the strain adds up, and the risks grow.

This article explains, in plain words, how khat affects the heart: why the pulse rises and blood pressure climbs, how the heart’s rhythm can be disturbed, what chest pain means, how long-term use can damage the heart and its blood vessels, and who faces the greatest danger. It is general information, not individual medical advice. Khat is illegal in some countries and restricted in others, and the law differs from place to place. If you have chest pain, breathlessness, or a very fast or irregular pulse, seek urgent medical help. If you are worried about your heart, a qualified health professional is the right person to talk to.

It helps to start with a simple picture of the heart’s job. The heart is a muscle that never stops. It beats around a hundred thousand times a day, pushing blood to every part of the body, carrying oxygen and nutrients to the brain, the muscles, and the organs. It works best when it has a steady rhythm, a normal pressure to push against, and time to rest between beats. A stimulant disturbs all three of those conditions. It makes the heart beat faster, raises the pressure it must push against, and shortens the rest between beats. The heart can cope with that for a while, just as a person can cope with running for a while, but it cannot run forever. Khat asks the heart to run for hours, and then asks it to do the same thing again the next day.

Why the Heart Beats Faster

The most immediate effect of khat on the heart is a faster pulse. Cathinone increases the activity of the body’s stress system, the same system that raises the heart rate when a person is frightened, excited, or exercising hard. The heart responds by beating faster and more forcefully, and blood pressure rises. During a session, a resting pulse that would normally sit in the sixties or seventies can climb much higher, and it can stay high for hours. For a young, healthy person, this may feel like nothing more than a pounding chest or a sense of being wired. For a person whose heart or blood vessels are already under strain, it can be dangerous.

The faster beat is not only a matter of speed. It is also a matter of work. Each extra beat is extra work for the heart muscle, and each beat at higher pressure is harder work still. The heart muscle itself needs oxygen to do that work, and it gets its oxygen from the small blood vessels that run over its surface. When the heart is beating fast and hard, it needs more oxygen, but the time between beats, when those vessels fill, is shorter. That mismatch, more demand and less supply, is the basic reason why stimulants can cause chest pain and, in the worst cases, a heart attack. The heart is asking for more than its own blood supply can deliver, and the muscle begins to suffer.

Blood pressure rises for a related reason. The stimulant effect tightens the blood vessels, narrowing the passages through which blood must flow, while the heart pushes harder at the same time. The result is higher pressure in the arteries, which can be measured as a raised reading on a blood pressure cuff. A single raised reading after a session is not, on its own, proof of lasting damage. But when blood pressure is raised again and again, day after day, the vessels and the heart begin to change. The vessel walls thicken and stiffen, the heart muscle thickens as it works against higher pressure, and the whole system becomes less flexible and less able to cope with sudden demands. That is the slow damage that regular khat use can cause, and it is easy to miss, because high blood pressure usually has no symptoms at all.

Blood Pressure That Stays High

High blood pressure is often called a silent problem, because a person can have it for years without feeling unwell. That silence is what makes it dangerous. The pressure is doing its damage quietly, straining the walls of the arteries, the heart, the kidneys, and the small vessels in the brain and the eyes. Khat raises blood pressure in the short term, and health guidance links regular, heavy use with a higher risk of lasting high blood pressure. The risk is greater when khat is used alongside other things that raise blood pressure, such as smoking, a salty diet, being overweight, or a lack of physical activity, and it is greater still for people who already have high blood pressure or a family history of heart disease.

The pattern of use matters. A person who uses khat occasionally may see their blood pressure rise during a session and return to normal afterwards. A person who uses it most days, for many hours at a time, gives their blood pressure little chance to return to normal. The vessels spend most of their time under higher pressure, and the body begins to treat that higher pressure as the usual state. Over months and years, that can turn into a lasting rise in blood pressure that persists even on days when no khat is used. At that point, the heart is working against a higher load all the time, not just during sessions, and the risk of heart disease, stroke, and kidney damage rises with it.

There is another factor that is often overlooked, which is sleep. Khat sessions run late, and the stimulant makes it hard to sleep afterwards. Poor sleep itself raises blood pressure, because the body does not get the nightly fall in pressure that rest normally brings. A person who is short of sleep, night after night, is a person whose blood pressure stays higher for longer, and whose heart gets less of the rest it needs. The combination of a stimulant, late nights, and broken sleep is a particularly unkind one for the heart, and it is one of the reasons why the heart risks of khat are greater than the effect of a single session would suggest. Checking blood pressure, and talking to a health professional about any raised reading, is a sensible step for anyone who uses khat regularly.

When the Rhythm Goes Wrong

A healthy heart beats in a steady, regular rhythm, with each beat following the last at an even pace. Khat can disturb that rhythm. The stimulant effect makes the heart more excitable, and the electrical signals that control the heartbeat can become irregular. People often notice this as a fluttering feeling in the chest, a skipped beat, a sudden racing, or a pulse that feels uneven when they check their wrist. These sensations are frightening, and they should be taken seriously, because an irregular rhythm is not always harmless. Some irregular beats are brief and settle on their own. Others can be a sign that the heart is under serious strain, and a few types of irregular rhythm can be dangerous in themselves.

The risk is higher when the heart is already vulnerable. A person with an existing heart condition, with high blood pressure, with a heart muscle that has already thickened, or with a history of rhythm problems is more likely to develop a serious irregular rhythm under the effect of a stimulant. The risk is also higher when khat is combined with other stimulants, with smoking, with alcohol, with dehydration, or with very poor sleep, because each of those adds its own strain. A long session in a hot room, with little water and little food, is a much harder test for the heart than a short session in comfortable conditions, and it is the kind of test that can end badly.

It is important to be clear about what to do if the rhythm feels wrong. A pulse that is very fast, very slow, irregular, or accompanied by chest pain, breathlessness, dizziness, or fainting needs urgent medical attention. These are not symptoms to wait out at home, and they are not symptoms to treat by using more khat, by drinking, or by lying down and hoping they pass. An irregular rhythm can sometimes be the warning before a more serious event, and the sooner it is assessed, the better the outcome is likely to be. If the symptoms settle quickly and the person feels well, they should still talk to a health professional soon afterwards, because a rhythm problem that happens once can happen again, and it deserves to be checked.

Chest Pain Is a Warning, Not a Nuisance

Chest pain after khat is one of the most important warning signs described in health guidance, and it is also one of the most commonly ignored. People who use khat regularly may become used to a tight feeling in the chest, a heaviness, or a dull ache, and may dismiss it as tiredness, indigestion, or anxiety. That dismissal is dangerous. Chest pain can be a sign that the heart muscle is not getting enough oxygen, which is exactly the mismatch described earlier: a heart that is working hard, beating fast, and pushing against high pressure, while its own blood supply is limited. That mismatch can damage the heart muscle, and if it goes on long enough, it can cause a heart attack.

A heart attack happens when the blood supply to part of the heart muscle is blocked or severely reduced, and the muscle begins to die. The classic symptoms are pain or tightness in the centre of the chest, which may spread to the arm, the jaw, the neck, or the back, along with breathlessness, sweating, nausea, and a feeling of dread. But not every heart attack looks like that. Some people feel only a vague discomfort, a pressure, or a pain that comes and goes. Some feel breathless without much pain. Some, especially people with diabetes or older people, feel very little pain at all. The rule that health professionals give is simple and worth remembering: chest pain that is new, that lasts more than a few minutes, that keeps coming back, or that comes with breathlessness, sweating, or feeling faint needs urgent help, and the person should not drive themselves to hospital.

Khat has been linked in medical reports with heart attacks, including in younger people who had no obvious heart disease beforehand. The link is not proof that khat alone caused each of those events, because other factors, such as smoking, high blood pressure, and family history, are often present as well. But the pattern is consistent enough to take seriously. A stimulant that raises heart rate and blood pressure, that tightens blood vessels, and that keeps the heart working hard for hours is a plausible cause of a heart attack in a vulnerable person, and health guidance treats it as a real risk. The safest response to chest pain after khat is not to argue about the cause, but to seek help immediately. A false alarm is a small price to pay. A missed heart attack can be fatal.

The Strain Builds Over Months and Years

The short-term effects of khat on the heart are the ones people notice: a fast pulse, a pounding chest, a raised blood pressure reading. The long-term effects are quieter, and they are the ones that matter most. When the heart is made to work harder than it should, day after day, it changes. The muscle thickens, as any muscle does when it is overworked, but a thicker heart muscle is not a stronger heart. It is a stiffer heart, one that fills less easily and pumps less efficiently. The blood vessels change too. Their walls thicken and lose their flexibility, and fatty deposits are more likely to build up inside them. Together, these changes narrow the passages that carry blood to the heart itself, to the brain, and to the rest of the body.

This process is the same one that underlies heart disease in general, and it is usually described as a gradual narrowing and stiffening of the arteries. It takes years, and it has no early symptoms, which is why it is so easy to ignore. A person can feel well, can work, can walk, and can enjoy life, while the damage is quietly accumulating. The first sign may be breathlessness on exertion, a chest pain that appears when walking uphill, or a heart attack that seems to come out of nowhere. In reality, it did not come out of nowhere. It came at the end of a long, silent process, and khat, with its repeated raising of heart rate and blood pressure, is one of the things that can speed that process up.

The risk is not the same for everyone. It is higher for people who use khat heavily and for many years, for people who smoke as well, for people with high blood pressure, diabetes, or high cholesterol, and for people with a family history of early heart disease. It is also higher for people who are older, because the arteries stiffen with age in any case. But the risk is not limited to older people. Medical reports have described heart problems linked to khat in younger adults, which is a reminder that a young heart is not an invincible heart. A stimulant that asks the heart to work hard for hours, combined with poor sleep, dehydration, and smoking, is a serious test at any age, and the heart does not always pass it.

Stroke, Smoking and the Wider Risks

The heart and the brain share the same blood vessels, and what harms one harms the other. High blood pressure and damaged arteries raise the risk of stroke, which happens when the blood supply to part of the brain is blocked or a blood vessel in the brain bursts. Khat’s effect on blood pressure and on the arteries is therefore a risk not only for the heart but for the brain as well. A stroke can cause sudden weakness on one side of the body, loss of speech, loss of vision, or a severe headache, and it needs urgent medical help. The same warning applies as with chest pain: sudden symptoms are not to be waited out at home. The sooner a stroke is treated, the better the chance of recovery.

Smoking is a common companion to khat use, and it makes the heart risks much worse. Tobacco smoke damages the lining of the blood vessels, raises blood pressure, makes the blood more likely to clot, and reduces the oxygen in the blood. Khat raises the heart rate and blood pressure on top of that damage, and the two together are worse than either alone. A person who uses khat and smokes is asking their heart to cope with two separate sources of strain at the same time, and the risk of heart attack and stroke rises accordingly. Stopping smoking is one of the most effective things a person can do for their heart, whether or not they also stop using khat, and it is worth discussing with a health professional.

There are other factors that add to the strain, and they are worth naming because they are common in the life of a regular khat user. Dehydration is one: long sessions with little water, in a hot room, leave the blood thicker and the heart working harder to push it around. Poor food is another: appetite is suppressed during a session, and meals are often skipped or replaced with sugary drinks, which does not help the heart. Lack of movement is a third: hours spent sitting still, followed by a night of poor sleep, is a poor routine for a heart that needs regular movement and rest. None of these factors alone is the cause of heart disease. Together, they create a pattern of life that is hard on the heart, and khat sits at the centre of that pattern.

What Improves After Stopping

The heart, like the brain, has a real ability to recover when the strain is removed. The fastest change after stopping khat is in the heart rate and blood pressure. Within days, the pulse usually settles to a slower, steadier rhythm, and blood pressure readings often fall, especially if they were raised mainly by the stimulant effect. That fall may not be complete, and if blood pressure has become persistently high, it may need treatment, but the direction is hopeful. The heart is no longer being asked to run for hours each day, and it can begin to rest between beats in the way it was designed to do.

Sleep improves too, and that helps the heart in a way that is easy to overlook. During deep sleep, blood pressure falls, the heart rate slows, and the body repairs itself. A person who has been sleeping poorly for months has been missing that nightly rest, and their heart has been missing it too. When sleep returns after stopping, the heart gets its rest back, night after night, and the benefit accumulates. People often notice that they feel less tired, that they can walk further without breathlessness, and that the pounding, fluttering feeling in the chest becomes less frequent. These are not small changes. They are the signs of a heart that is recovering.

Over months and years, the longer-term risks fall as well. The risk of heart attack and stroke, which was raised by years of high blood pressure and arterial strain, begins to decline, although it may not return fully to the level of someone who never used khat. That is not a reason to give up. It is a reason to stop now, because every year without the extra strain is a year of lower risk. The heart’s recovery is slower than the brain’s, because the changes in the muscle and the vessels take longer to reverse, but it is real, and it is worth pursuing. Anyone who stops should talk to a health professional about checking their blood pressure, their heart rhythm, and their overall heart risk, so that any lasting damage can be found and treated early.

My Take:

I will be honest with you. When people talk about khat, they usually talk about the brain: the alertness, the talkativeness, the foggy thinking the next day. The heart is mentioned less often, and I think that is a mistake. The heart is the organ that does the extra work, hour after hour, while the brain enjoys the lift. It beats faster, it pushes against higher pressure, and it gets less rest between beats, and it does all of that without complaint, until the day it cannot. That silence is what worries me. A person can feel fine, can laugh with friends, can believe their heart is coping, while the strain is building up inside. By the time the heart speaks, in chest pain or in a rhythm that will not settle, the damage has already been done. I would rather people heard the warning before that moment, not after it.

What stays with me is how ordinary the danger looks. A fast pulse during a session does not feel like a medical emergency. It feels like being awake, like being energised, like being alive. A raised blood pressure reading does not hurt. A flutter in the chest can be dismissed as nerves. Each of these things, on its own, is easy to ignore, and that is exactly why they are dangerous. The heart does not always warn loudly. Sometimes it warns quietly, in a pulse that is a little too fast, in a blood pressure that is a little too high, in a tiredness that is blamed on a late night. I think the most important thing a person who uses khat can do is to listen to those quiet warnings, to check their blood pressure, to notice their pulse, and to take chest pain seriously every single time it appears.

I think about the people who are most at risk, and I find that part hard to write about without feeling angry. A person who already has high blood pressure, who already smokes, who already has a family history of heart disease, is a person whose heart is already carrying a load. Khat adds another load on top of it, and the heart, which was already working hard, is asked to work harder still. That person may not know they are at risk. They may never have had their blood pressure checked. They may believe, because they are young or because they feel well, that their heart is strong. I wish more people in that position had their blood pressure checked, had their heart listened to, and had someone explain to them, plainly, that a stimulant and a vulnerable heart are a dangerous combination. That conversation could save a life, and it is a conversation that happens far too rarely.

Chest pain is the part I feel most strongly about, because it is the warning that is most often ignored and the one where delay costs the most. I have read the accounts of people who felt chest pain after a session, who told themselves it was indigestion, who waited, who went to bed, and who woke up worse. I have also read the accounts of people who sought help quickly and were treated in time. The difference between those two stories is often a single decision, made in a moment of fear and uncertainty, to call for help rather than to wait. If I could leave a reader with one thing from this article, it would be that decision. Chest pain is not a nuisance. It is not something to be embarrassed about. It is a warning, and the correct response to a warning is to act on it, quickly, without arguing about the cause.

I also think about the long, slow damage, because it is the part that is hardest to see and easiest to dismiss. A heart that thickens, vessels that stiffen, arteries that narrow: none of these things can be felt. They do not hurt. They do not make a person feel ill. They simply make the heart less able to cope, year by year, until a day comes when it cannot cope at all. That is a frightening way to become ill, because there is no single moment to point to, no single session to blame, only a long pattern of strain that was never interrupted. I think that is why regular checks matter so much. A blood pressure reading, a pulse check, a conversation with a health professional: these are small, ordinary things, and they are the only way to see the damage while there is still time to slow it down.

The combination of khat and smoking is something I keep returning to, because it is so common and so harmful. Many people who use khat also smoke, and the two habits reinforce each other. The session is long, the room is social, and a cigarette feels like a natural part of it. But the heart pays for both. Tobacco damages the vessels. Khat raises the pressure and the heart rate. Together, they are a far greater risk than either alone, and I think anyone who uses both should know that plainly. Stopping one helps. Stopping both helps more. I do not say that to judge anyone. I say it because the arithmetic is clear, and because I would rather a person heard it from an article than learned it from a hospital bed.

Sleep is the part I did not expect to matter so much when I first read about khat and the heart, and it is the part I now think about most. The heart needs sleep. It needs the nightly fall in blood pressure, the slower pulse, the hours of rest. Khat takes that rest away, night after night, and the heart is left working at a higher rate around the clock. That is a cruel trade, because the person who is tired from poor sleep is also the person most likely to use khat again the next day, to push through the tiredness. The cycle is self-reinforcing, and it is hard to break from inside. But the recovery, when it comes, is also self-reinforcing. Sleep returns, the heart rests, energy improves, and the need for a stimulant to get through the day becomes less. That is a hopeful circle, and it is one worth stepping into.

I think about families here too, because a heart problem does not affect only the person whose heart it is. A heart attack, a stroke, a sudden collapse: these are events that change a whole family. A partner becomes a carer. Children lose a parent’s presence, or lose a parent altogether. Money that was spent on khat becomes money spent on hospital bills. The grief and the fear that follow a heart event are not suffered alone, and I think people who use khat often underestimate that. They think of their heart as their own business, and in a sense it is, but the consequences of a heart that fails are shared by everyone who loves them. That is not a reason for guilt. It is a reason for honesty, and for taking the risk seriously before it becomes a crisis.

What gives me hope is that the heart can recover, and that the recovery begins quickly. A pulse that settles, a blood pressure that falls, a sleep that deepens: these are real changes, and they happen within days and weeks of stopping, not years. The longer-term risks take longer to fall, but they do fall, and every year without the extra strain is a year of lower risk. I do not think it is ever too late to stop, and I do not think anyone should be told that the damage is done and cannot be undone. Much of it can be slowed, some of it can be reversed, and all of it is better faced early than late. If you are worried about your heart, the best time to talk to a health professional is now, not after the next warning sign.

If I could speak directly to a person who uses khat and has felt their heart race, or felt a flutter, or felt a tightness in their chest, I would say this: do not ignore it. Do not tell yourself it was nothing. Do not wait to see if it happens again. Get it checked. A check is quick, it is painless, and it can tell you whether your heart is coping or whether it needs help. If the check finds nothing wrong, you will have peace of mind, and that is worth having. If it finds something, you will have found it early, and early is when heart problems are most treatable. Either way, you will have done the right thing, and you will have given your heart the attention it deserves.

Finally, I want to say something about the social side, because I know that giving up khat can feel like giving up friendship. The gatherings, the long conversations, the shared afternoons: these are real, and they matter. But friendship does not need a stimulant to be real. Friends can meet, talk, eat together, and share their lives without asking their hearts to work harder for hours. It will feel different at first, and it may feel quieter, but it can also feel kinder, clearer, and more genuinely restful. The heart you save by stopping is the heart that will be there for your family, your friends, and your future, for years to come. That is a trade worth making, and it is one I hope every reader of this article will consider seriously.

I also want to say something practical about checking your heart, because I think this is the step most people skip. A blood pressure check takes a few minutes, it does not hurt, and it can reveal a problem that has been silent for years. A conversation with a health professional about your pulse, your blood pressure, your family history, and your smoking can give you a clearer picture of your risk than any article can. I know that many people avoid such checks because they are afraid of what they might find, but not knowing does not make the risk go away. It only means the risk goes untreated. Knowing, even when the news is not good, gives you a chance to act, and acting early is when heart problems are most treatable. If you use khat regularly, I would ask you to get checked, not as a punishment, but as a kindness to yourself.

The question of smoking deserves its own honest answer, because so many khat users also smoke, and the two together are so much worse for the heart than either alone. I understand why the two go together. The session is long, the room is social, and a cigarette feels like part of the occasion. But the heart does not care about the occasion. It cares about the load. Tobacco damages the vessel walls and makes the blood more likely to clot, while khat raises the heart rate and the pressure. Stopping smoking is hard, and stopping both at once is harder still, but even stopping one is a real step, and the heart benefits from every step. A health professional can talk through the support that exists, and that support is there because quitting is hard, not because the person trying is weak.

Replacing the session is, in my view, just as important as stopping the substance, and this is true for the heart as much as for the brain. A long afternoon spent sitting still, in a hot room, with little water and little food, is a poor routine for a heart that needs movement, water, and rest. The hours that used to belong to a session can be given to something kinder: a walk, a meal eaten slowly with family, a game, a visit, a piece of work done properly. None of these will feel as exciting as a stimulant at first, and I do not want to pretend otherwise. But they will leave the heart steadier, the sleep deeper, and the next morning lighter, and those are the changes that add up, day by day, into a healthier life.

I think patience matters here too, because the heart recovers more slowly than the brain, and it is easy to become discouraged when the change is not visible. A pulse that settles and a blood pressure that falls are real improvements, even if they cannot be felt in the same way as a clearer head. The longer-term risks, of heart attack and stroke, fall gradually, over months and years, and they fall most for the people who also look after the other parts of their heart health: stopping smoking, moving regularly, eating well, and sleeping properly. I would ask anyone who has stopped to judge their progress over months, not over days, and to keep their follow-up checks, because those checks are the only way to see the quiet improvement that is happening inside.

And for anyone who has never used khat, I would say this plainly: do not start, and do not let the social setting persuade you otherwise. The first session can feel pleasant and harmless, and the fast pulse can feel like energy rather than strain. But the heart is doing extra work in those hours, and if the sessions become regular, that extra work becomes a pattern, and the pattern becomes damage. The people who live with heart disease linked to khat did not start because they wanted to harm their hearts. They started because the first hours felt good, and because everyone around them was doing it. Saying no to that first invitation is not a rejection of friendship. It is a decision to protect the heart that has to carry you through the rest of your life.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Khat make the heart race?

Khat contains a stimulant called cathinone, which activates the body’s stress system and makes the heart beat faster and more forcefully. The heart rate rises because the brain is telling the body to be more alert, in the same way it does during exercise or fright, and blood pressure rises at the same time. The effect can last for hours during a session, and the heart may stay fast even after the session ends. A fast pulse that is very rapid, irregular, or accompanied by chest pain, breathlessness or dizziness needs urgent medical attention.

Who is most at risk from Khat heart effects?

The greatest risk is faced by people who already have heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, or a history of rhythm problems, and by people with a family history of early heart disease. Heavy, long-term users face a higher risk than occasional users, and the risk is greater still for people who also smoke, who are overweight, or who have very poor sleep. Older people face a higher risk because their arteries are already stiffer, but younger people are not safe either, and medical reports have described heart problems linked to khat in younger adults. Anyone in these groups who uses khat should talk to a health professional.

Can Khat cause a heart attack?

Khat has been linked in medical reports with heart attacks, including in younger people without obvious heart disease beforehand. The link is thought to work through a faster heart rate, higher blood pressure, and narrowed blood vessels, which together can leave the heart muscle short of oxygen. The risk is higher when khat is combined with smoking, high blood pressure, or existing heart disease. A heart attack is a medical emergency, and chest pain, breathlessness, sweating, or pain spreading to the arm or jaw needs urgent help immediately.

Is chest pain after Khat dangerous?

Yes, chest pain after khat should always be treated as potentially serious until a health professional has checked it. It can be a sign that the heart muscle is not getting enough oxygen, which is the early stage of a heart attack. Chest pain that is new, lasts more than a few minutes, keeps coming back, or comes with breathlessness, sweating, nausea, or feeling faint needs urgent medical help. Do not drive yourself to hospital, and do not wait to see if it passes. A false alarm is a small price to pay for ruling out a heart attack.

Does Khat raise blood pressure?

Yes, khat raises blood pressure during a session, because the stimulant tightens the blood vessels while the heart pushes harder. A single raised reading after a session may return to normal afterwards, but regular, heavy use is linked with a higher risk of lasting high blood pressure, which usually has no symptoms and can only be found by measuring it. High blood pressure strains the heart, the arteries, the kidneys and the brain over time. Anyone who uses khat regularly should have their blood pressure checked and discuss any raised reading with a health professional.

Can Khat damage your heart?

Yes, khat can damage the heart, both in the short term and over the long term. In the short term, it can cause a very fast or irregular pulse and chest pain. Over months and years, regular heavy use can raise blood pressure, thicken the heart muscle, stiffen the blood vessels, and raise the risk of heart attack and stroke. The damage is often silent at first, with no symptoms until it is advanced. Much of the risk falls after stopping, especially if blood pressure and other heart risk factors are also treated, and the sooner a person stops, the better the chance of recovery.

Sources

This article is general information only. It is not individual medical advice. If you are worried about your health, talk to a qualified health professional.