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 They also had higher risks of clogged arteries, heart failure, and
reduced blood flow to the limbs.
The risks were lower for diabetics who quit smoking, but still
moderately higher than risks among never smokers, the researchers
write in the journal Circulation.
Lead author An Pan told Reuters Health by email that smoking is
still common among people with diabetes, despite efforts to
discourage it.
“We wanted to know whether smoking was related to total mortality
and cardiovascular events among diabetic patients, and whether
smoking cessation would reduce the risks,” said Pan, who is a
professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smoking
can worsen the health risks that go along with diabetes, such as
heart and kidney disease, nerve damage, and blindness.
Pan’s team pooled the data from 89 earlier studies of smoking among
adults with type 2 diabetes and found that diabetic smokers were
around 1.5 times more likely to experience clogged arteries, stroke,
overall heart disease, and heart failure.
In addition, smokers were more than twice as likely to suffer from
peripheral artery disease, or reduced blood flow to the limbs, than
patents who did not smoke.
Former smokers had 1.2 times the risk of clogged arteries and 1.1
times the risk of overall heart disease, compared to never-smokers.
Using the risk estimates from their review and global rates of
deaths from diabetes, the researchers estimated that smoking
accounted for 14.6 percent of deaths in diabetic men and 3.3 percent
of deaths in diabetic women worldwide.
Dr. Wael Al-Delaimy, division chief of global health at the
University of California, San Diego, said part of the problem may be
the care diabetes patients receive.
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“The physician caring for the diabetes patient might be focusing on
cardiovascular risk factors or diabetes complications and diet and
weight control while neglecting smoking as another important risk
factor,” Al-Delaimy told Reuters by email.
Pan said some smokers may be reluctant to quit due to concerns about
gaining weight in the short term. However, he noted, “The long-term
benefits clearly overweigh the short-term side effects.”
Pan advises diabetic patients who are smokers “to seek professional
help to quit smoking.”
Al-Delaimy agreed, saying, “If you are a patient suffering from
diabetes and smoking cigarettes, or if you know a family member,
friend or anyone else who is diabetic and smoking, there is still
opportunity to substantially decrease further complications and
suffering or even early death by quitting smoking.”
SOURCE: bit.ly/1EO1vsM Circulation, online August 26, 2015.
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