Passive smoking causes irreversible damage to children’s arteries

Passive smoking causes irreversible damage to children’s arteries

Research by Menzies' Dr Seana Gall has found that exposure to passive smoking in childhood causes irreversible damage to the structure of children's arteries.

Research by Menzies' Dr Seana Gall has found that exposure to passive smoking in childhood causes irreversible damage to the structure of children's arteries.

The work by Dr Gall, a Research Fellow in cardiovascular epidemiology, and a team from Finland and Melbourne was published online in the European Heart Journal.

The thickening of the arteries' walls associated with being exposed to parents' smoke means that these children will be at greater risk of heart attacks and strokes in later life. The researchers found that exposure to both parents smoking in childhood adds an extra 3.3 years to the age of blood vessels when the children reach adulthood.

"Our study shows that exposure to passive smoke in childhood causes a direct and irreversible damage to the structure of the arteries," Dr Gall said.

The study is the first to follow children through to adulthood in order to examine the association between exposure to parental smoking and increased carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) – a measurement of the thickness of the innermost two layers of the arterial wall – in adulthood. It adds further strength to the arguments for banning smoking in areas where children may be present, such as cars.

The study was made up of 2401 participants in the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study, which started in 1980, and 1375 participants in the Childhood Determinants of Adult Health study, which started in 1985 in Australia. The children were aged between three and 18 at the start of the studies. The researchers asked questions about parents smoking habits and they used ultrasound to measure the thickness of the children's artery walls once they had reached adulthood.

The researchers found that carotid IMT in adulthood was 0.015 mm thicker in those exposed to both parents smoking than in those whose parents did not smoke, increasing from an average of 0.637 mm to 0.652 mm.

 "While the differences in artery thickness are modest, it is important to consider that they represent the independent effect of a single measure of exposure – that is, whether or not the parents smoked at the start of the studies – some 20 years earlier in a group already at greater risk of heart disease. For example, those with both parents smoking were more likely, as adults, to be smokers or overweight than those whose parents didn't smoke," Dr Gall said.

The results took account of other factors that could explain the association such as education, the children's smoking habits, physical activity, body mass index, alcohol consumption and biological cardiovascular risk factors such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels in adulthood.

In the paper, the authors write: "Reducing young people's exposure to tobacco smoke is a public health priority. Legislation can reduce passive smoke exposure, with restriction of smoking in public places reducing hospitalizations for cardiovascular and respiratory disease. Home smoking bans specifically benefit young people and data from the USA suggest such bans have increased from about 50% in the mid-1990s to 85% in 2006-7, suggesting that exposure to passive smoke at home is declining. Unfortunately, these reductions have largely occurred in higher socio-economic groups, meaning socio-economic inequalities in passive smoke exposure remain."

Professor Alison Venn, also of Menzies, is also an author on the paper.

Contact:

Phone:

Email: