An acquaintance of mine just suffered a heart attack. He is two weeks into his recovery. While I don't know his exact age, I assume he is about fifty five. He needs double bypass surgery and knowing the cheap bastards that employee him, he probably doesn't have health insurance but that is a different matter. The point is that he lost his teeth early in life.

Dentists have been telling physicians for three decades there is a link between abscessed teeth and heart disease. My friend smoked three packs of cigarettes and cigarettes like other drugs causes narrowing of the arteries and the smallest are the first part of the body to suffer particularly the pulp chamber of the tooth. The arteries narrow, the chamber cannot support the nerve, the nerve dies and tooth dies as well.  The tooth must have a root canal or be extracted

This phenomenon is even more prevalent in coke users and is astronomical among smokers of crystal meth. Having rotting and dead teeth are bad enough and the small arteries that are becoming occluded happen over the entire body, pancreas, liver, heart, lungs and brain.

I have long held that smoking as bad as it is on lungs is even worse on the heart. This also applies to people who chew or dip tobacco as the astronomically high jolt of nicotine in this practice can and does cause premature heart attacks.