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 The study team analyzed data from 141 smaller studies to assess the
risk of heart disease and stroke for people who smoked one, five or
20 cigarettes a day. Men who smoked one cigarette a day were 74
percent more likely to have heart disease and 30 percent more likely
to have a stroke than men who never smoked at all, they report in
The BMJ.
Women who smoked one cigarette daily were more than twice as likely
to develop heart disease and 46 percent more likely to have a stroke
than women who didn’t smoke.
“People who have always been light smokers will have a higher risk
of cardiovascular disease than many of them expect,” said lead study
author Allan Hackshaw of the Cancer Institute at University College
London in the UK.
While their risk is still lower than for heavy smokers, the results
should offer fresh motivation for light smokers to quit altogether,
Hackshaw said by email. Heavy smokers, meanwhile, can benefit from
cutting back even if they can’t quit.
“Cutting down is certainly better than smoking the same high
amount,” Hackshaw advised. “And cutting down has significant
reductions in the risk of cancer and other disorders; hence, it is
absolutely important that people try this if they find it too
difficult to stop completely.”
For example, men who smoked about a pack a day had more than twice
the risk of heart disease as non-smokers, while the risk was 58
percent higher than nonsmokers’ for men who smoked five cigarettes a
day and 48 percent higher for men who smoked just one.
Similarly, women who smoked five cigarettes daily had 43 percent of
the excess of heart disease associated with a pack-a-day habit,
while women who smoked one cigarette a day had 31 percent of the
excess risk.
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Compared to nonsmokers, men who smoked 20 cigarettes a day were 64
percent more likely to have a stroke and women had more than twice
the risk for stroke.
The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether
or how the number of cigarettes people smoke on a typical day might
impact their risk of heart disease or stroke.
Another limitation of the analysis is that researchers lacked data
on individual patient characteristics from many of the smaller
studies, making it impossible to assess whether the study results
might be explained by factors that can independently lead to stroke
and heart disease and stroke such as obesity and diabetes.
Even so, the findings should serve as a reminder that no amount of
smoking is safe, said Kenneth Johnson of the School of Epidemiology
and Public Health at the University of Ottawa in Canada, who wasn’t
involved in the study.
That’s because smoking can lead to an irregular heart beat, blood
clots too well, thickening and stiffening of the artery walls and
increased blood pressure, Johnson, author of an accompanying
editorial, said by email.
“With regard to the number of cigarettes, it’s a little like with
matches, you only need one - not the whole box - to start a fire,”
Johnson said. “Even secondhand smoke appears to trigger these
damaging processes, resulting in 80 to 90 percent of the effect
associated with active smoking.”
SOURCES: http://bit.ly/2DE8ytj and http://bit.ly/2E5tmcf BMJ, online
January 24, 2018.
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