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- Even light-to-moderate cigarette smoking is associated with a significant increase in the risk of sudden cardiac death in women.
- The risk of sudden cardiac death rose 8 percent for each five years of smoking.
- However, within 15-20 years of smoking cessation the risk of sudden cardiac death drops to that of a nonsmoker.
Women
who are even light-to-moderate cigarette smokers may be significantly more
likely than nonsmokers to suffer sudden cardiac death, according to new
research.
The
findings indicate long-term smokers may be at even greater risk. But quitting smoking can reduce and
eliminate the risk over time.
“Cigarette
smoking is a known risk factor for sudden cardiac death, but until now, we
didn’t know how the quantity and duration of smoking effected the risk among
apparently healthy women, nor did we have long-term follow-up,” said Roopinder
K. Sandhu, M.D., M.P.H., the study’s lead author and a cardiac
electrophysiologist at the University of Alberta’s Mazankowski Heart Institute
in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Researchers
examined the incidence of sudden cardiac death among more than 101,000 healthy
women in the Nurses’ Health Study, which has collected biannual health
questionnaires from female nurses nationwide since 1976. They included records
dating back to 1980 with 30 years of follow-up. Most of the participants were
white, and all were between 30 to 55 years old at the study’s start. On
average, those who smoked reported that they started in their late teens.
During
the study, 351 participants died of sudden cardiac death.
Other
findings include:
- Light-to-moderate smokers, defined in this study as those who smoked one to 14 cigarettes daily, had nearly two times the risk of sudden cardiac death as their nonsmoking counterparts.
- Women with no history of heart disease, cancer, or stroke who smoked had almost two and a half times the risk of sudden cardiac death compared with healthy women who never smoked.
- For every five years of continued smoking, the risk climbed by 8 percent.
- Among women with heart disease, the risk of sudden cardiac death dropped to that of a nonsmoker within 15 to 20 years after smoking cessation. In the absence of heart disease, there was an immediate reduction in sudden cardiac death risk, occurring in fewer than five years.
Sudden
cardiac death results from the abrupt loss of heart function, usually within
minutes after the heart stops. It’s a primary cause of heart-related deaths,
accounting for between 300,000-400,000 deaths in the United States each year.
“Sudden
cardiac death is often the first sign of heart disease among women, so
lifestyle changes that reduce that risk are particularly important,” said
Sandhu, who is also a visiting scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in
Boston, Mass. “Our study shows that cigarette smoking is an important
modifiable risk factor for sudden cardiac death among all women. Quitting
smoking before heart disease develops is critical.”
###
The
above story is based on the December 11, 2012 news release by American Heart
Association.
The
research has been published online December 11, 2012 in Circulation: Arrhythmia
& Electrophysiology, an American Heart Association journal:
Sandhu
RK, Jimenez MC, Chiuve SE, Fitzgerald KC, Kenfield SA, Tedrow UB, Albert CM.
Smoking, Smoking Cessation and Risk of
Sudden Cardiac Death in Women. Circ
Arrhythm Electrophysiol. 2012 DOI: 10.1161/CIRCEP.112.975219
Learn
more from the American Heart Association on the benefits of not smoking and howto quit smoking.
Learn
more about the unique heart disease risks women face and how to beat them at Go Red for Women
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