Exposure to Secondhand Smoke Increases Risk of Cardiovascular Disease

Smokers endanger their own health and the health of everyone exposed to their smoke. Nothing makes me cringe more than seeing a child’s caretaker puffing away on a cancer/heart disease stick right next to the darling child. Just in Georgia alone, 423,000 children are exposed to smoke at home. And in the United States, 45,000-60,000 cardiovascular deaths each year are linked to non-smoker’s exposure to secondhand smoke

Children who inherit the slower acting variations of genes involved in metabolizing nicotine – CYP1A1, GSTM1, GSTT1 and CYP2A6 – are at even greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Nicotine is slower to leave their bodies and cause greater cellular damage.

At the Georgia Prevention Institute, researchers will be studying 585 children age 15-20 who have a parent, grandparent or both with essential hypertension and/or a heart attack by age 55. They’ll be analyzing these children’s blood samples to determine cotinine levels, a metabolized version of nicotine and a marker for secondhand smoke exposure. They’ll also be determining the rates of cardiovascular disease including “reduced ability of arteries to dilate; the blood encountering increased resistance as it travels through vessels; higher blood pressure; and an increase in the size of the pumping chamber of the heart – a result of pumping against elevated pressure. ”

Dr. Martha Tingen:

If kids are exposed in the home and they have genetic alterations that make nicotine stay in the body longer, then there’s an increased likelihood that they’re at greater risk for developing cardiovascular disease.

Hey, you over there. Stub out that cigarette now. And a shout out to one friend who’s trying to quit – Tris of Homely Scientist. Hang in there, Tris!

Medical News Today, April 25, 2006

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