Don't become passive!
Passive smoking tripled the risk of heart failure
Maria Azarova, Naked Science
A passive smoker is someone who does not smoke himself, but inhales the "side" smoke from the burning tip of the cigarette and the "main" smoke exhaled by a smoker. According to the World Health Organization, over 600 thousand deaths a year on the planet are caused by secondhand smoke – this is more than 1% of all deaths. In the early 2000s, experts estimated that in a year 40% of minors, 33% of men and 35% of women who did not have this bad habit were still exposed to passive smoking. They faced coronary heart disease (397 thousand deaths), lower respiratory tract infections (165 thousand), asthma (36 thousand) and lung cancer (21.4 thousand). Children suffer the most, as passive smoking provokes the development of respiratory infections and death in them during the first few years of life.
As the staff of Wake Forest Medical School (North Carolina, USA) found out, passive inhalation of cigarette smoke can make you more vulnerable to heart failure. In this condition, the heart does not work as well as it should, and it is difficult for it to meet the needs of the body: there are violations of the contractility of the myocardium and a decrease in systolic and minute blood volumes. The results of the study were presented at the 70th annual session of the American College of Cardiology and will soon be published in one of the scientific journals.
Doctors analyzed the data of 11,219 non-smoking participants in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of the USA (NHANES), who were followed from 1988 to 1994. On average, they were 48 years old, slightly more than half were women (55.9%), the majority belonged to the white race (70.5%). Almost every fifth person has reliably encountered passive smoking: it was defined as the level of cotinine in the blood serum of more than one nanogram per milliliter (considered a threshold value). Cotinine is a nicotine metabolite that is used to measure levels of smoke exposure. Usually, it is estimated that a person has inhaled tobacco smoke from the environment over the past one or two days (half-life is 18-20 hours).
As it turned out, non-smokers who were exposed to cigarette smoke had a 35% higher risk of developing heart failure than those who avoided passive smoking. The relationship persisted even after taking into account factors such as a history of other heart diseases, high cholesterol and diabetes. The results were similar for other subgroups, including different ethnic/racial groups and obese patients. "This adds irrefutable evidence about the dangers of passive smoking," said Dr. Travis Skipina, lead author of the study. "[Secondhand smoke] is associated with stroke and heart attacks, but what has not been reported before is its association with heart failure – an extremely debilitating and expensive disease."
In men, the association of passive smoking with heart failure was more pronounced. Another special risk group included those who had already experienced a heart attack or stroke. "Men tend to face cardiovascular diseases at a younger age, and in general they were younger, so maybe that's why they had a predisposition," Skipina added.
Of course, since this is a cross-examination, moreover based on old data, it shows only a temporary picture and cannot establish cause and effect. But, as scientists note, the association of passive smoking with heart failure persisted even when comparing 3796 participants observed from 2003 to 2006 – that is, after the authorities began to implement anti-smoking campaigns and introduce a ban on smoking in certain public places.
"Even with less background exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke, it was found to have a positive association with heart failure. Active and passive smoking cause a pro–inflammatory condition, and a higher level of inflammation affects all body tissues and can lead to maladaptive changes in the structure of the heart and damage to blood vessels," Skipina summed up.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru