Omega-3 Fatty Acids May Help to Reduce the Physical Harm Caused by Smoking

New study presented at the World Congress of Cardiology organized by the World Heart Federation 

Omega-3 fatty acids may help to reduce the physical harm caused by smoking, according to a new study presented yesterday (20 April 2012) at the World Congress of Cardiology in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The study, carried out in Greece, assessed the effect of four-week oral treatment with 2 g/day of omega-3 fatty acids on the arterial wall properties of cigarette smokers. The results showed that short-term treatment with omega-3 fatty acids improves arterial stiffness and moderates the acute smoking-induced impairment of vascular elastic properties in smokers.

“These findings suggest that omega-3 fatty acids inhibit the detrimental effects of smoking on arterial function, which is an independent prognostic marker of cardiovascular risk,” said Dr. Gerasimos Siasos, University of Athens Medical School, 1st Department of Cardiology, “Hippokration” Hospital. “The cardioprotective effects of omega-3 fatty acids appear to be due to a synergism between multiple, intricate mechanisms involving anti-inflammatory and anti-atherosclerotic effects. Furthermore, AHA recommends that people without documented history of coronary heart disease should consume a variety of fish (preferably oily – rich in omega-3 fatty acids) at least twice per week.”

The World Heart Federation strongly encourages all smokers to quit,” said Dr Kathryn Taubert, Chief Science Officer at the World Heart Federation. “The only way to protect your body from the harmful effects of tobacco is to stop smoking. We encourage all people, both smokers and non-smokers, to eat healthy diets, which includes foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids.”

 

How Maternal Smoking Or Nicotine Use Increases The Risk Of Cardiovascular Disease In Later Life

Scientists now understand more about why being exposed to nicotine while you were a fetus will increase your risk of developing cardiovascular disease as an adult. “We have found distinct links between cigarette smoking or even using nicotine patches or gum and the long-term harm for the child,” says Dr. DaLiao Xiao, a scientist who works at the Loma Linda University School of Medicine in California.

Publishing his research in the British Journal of Pharmacology, Xiao showed that when he gave nicotine to pregnant rats, the offspring had higher risks of high blood pressure than animals whose mothers didn’t receive nicotine during pregnancy. While the work was carried out in rats, these findings fitted well with studies carried out in people.

Importantly, Xiao and his colleagues have discovered that specific changes in the blood vessel walls account for this outcome. Xiao shows that nicotine causes the formation of chemicals, known as reactive oxygen species (ROS), in the walls of blood vessels in the fetus. These ROS cause permanent changes that alter the normal behaviour of the blood vessel. This faulty programming is then carried throughout the individual’s life and may lead to high blood pressure in adults.

“Other researchers have shown that cigarette smoking or nicotine use in pregnant women results in an increased risk of hypertension and cardiovascular disease in adulthood. Our findings provide novel information of the fetal programming that links fetal nicotine exposure to the long term damage,” says Xiao.

In a commentary accompanying the paper, Associate Professor Christopher Sobey, of the Department of Pharmacology, Monash University, Australia, states, “If this is ultimately proven in humans, this important work will have revealed a novel cardiovascular risk factor that can only be modified before birth.”

Another Danger Of Secondhand Smoke — Hearing Loss

NEW YORK, July, 18, 2011 – NYU School of Medicine researchers report in a new study that exposure to tobacco smoke nearly doubles the risk of hearing loss among adolescents. The study is published in the July, 2011, issue of Archives of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery.

“More than half of all children in the U.S. are exposed to secondhand smoke, so our finding that it can lead to hearing loss in teenagers has huge public health implications,”* says Anil Lalwani, MD, professor of professor of otolaryngology, physiology and neuroscience, and pediatrics at NYU School of Medicine, who led the research. “We need to evaluate how we deal with smoking in public places and at home, as well as how often and when we screen children for hearing loss,” he says.

The dangers of secondhand smoke are well known. Living with a smoker raises the risk of dying from heart disease and lung cancer, and in children exposure to smoke exacerbates the severity of asthma attacks and causes more than 750,000 middle ear infections, according to the American Cancer Society. The new study is the first to link secondhand smoke to hearing loss.

More than 1,500 teenagers aged 12 to 19 participated in the nationwide study. They were selected from the 2005-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which collects health information from children and adults around the United States. The teenagers were initially evaluated in their homes and then were given extensive hearing tests and blood tests for the chemical cotinine, a metabolite of nicotine, at a medical center.

The teens exposed to secondhand smoke, as measured by the metabolite in their blood, were more likely to have sensorineural hearing loss, which is most often caused by problems with the cochlea, the snail-shaped hearing organ of the inner ear. “It’s the type of hearing loss that usually tends to occur as one gets older, or among children born with congenital deafness,” explains co-author Michael Weitzman, MD, professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine.

The study found that teenagers exposed to smoke performed worse across every sound frequency tested, especially mid-to-high frequencies important for understanding speech. In addition, teenagers with higher cotinine levels, indicating greater exposure, were more likely to have one-sided–or unilateral–low-frequency hearing loss. Overall, the researchers conclude that their findings indicate that “tobacco smoke is independently associated with an almost 2-fold increase in the risk of hearing loss among adolescents.”

Over 80 percent of the affected teenagers in the study were not aware of any problem, the researchers reported. “Milder hearing loss is not necessarily noticeable,” says Dr. Lalwani. “Thus, simply asking someone whether they think they have hearing loss is insufficient.”

The consequences of mild hearing loss, which researchers suspect may be due to damage to the ear’s delicate blood supply, are “subtle yet serious,” says Dr. Weitzman. Affected children can have difficulty understanding what is being said in the classroom and become distracted. As a result, they may be labeled as “troublemakers” or misdiagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).

Currently, all infants born in the United States are screened for hearing loss; however, there are no guidelines for screening a child’s hearing past the early school years, says Dr. Lalwani. “Those children who are exposed to secondhand smoke,” he says, “need to be regularly screened.”