*** Damage to arteries from smoking may be permanent, says a
recent study. In The Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers
reported that both cigarette smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke can
irreversibly damage arteries. “Just 30
minutes of exposure to second-hand cigarette smoke can damage the heart of a
healthy non-smoker,” says Canada’s Globe and Mail in a report on a recent study
in Japan. The study followed 10,914 men
and women between 45 and 65 years of age. The group included smokers,
former smokers, nonsmokers regularly exposed to secondhand smoke, and
nonsmokers not regularly exposed to secondhand smoke. Researchers using
ultrasound measured the thickness of the carotid artery in the neck. These
measurements were repeated three years later.
As expected, regular smokers had a significant increase in
the hardening of their arteries—50 percent in the case of subjects who, on
average, had smoked a pack of cigarettes daily for 33 years. The arteries of
former smokers also narrowed, at a rate 25 percent faster than those of
nonsmokers—some even 20 years after they quit. Nonsmokers who were exposed
to secondhand smoke showed 20 percent more arterial thickening than those who
were not exposed. According to the study, an estimated 30,000 to 60,000 deaths
each year in the United States alone can be attributed to exposure to
secondhand smoke.