Smoking Damage

If you think an occasional puff wouldn’t do any damage to your health, think again. A new research conducted by researchers at University of Georgia shows that even occasional cigarette smoking can impair the functioning of your arteries.

The study used ultrasound to measure how the arteries of healthy young adults respond to changes in blood flow. 18 college students were recruited for their study. Among them, half smoked less than a pack a week and were smoke-free for two days prior to the test. The other half were non-smokers.

They found that the arteries of the occasional smokers were 36 per cent less responsive to changes in blood flow than non-smokers. The occasional smokers were asked to smoke two cigarettes after they underwent their initial test. The researchers then re-examined their arteries and found that smoking dropped their arterial responsiveness by another 24 percent compared to before they smoked.

Study co-author Kevin McCully, a professor of kinesiology in the UGA College of Education, have this to say: “Most people know that if they have a cigarette or two over the weekend that it’s not good for their arteries, but what they may not be aware of—and what our study shows—is that the decrease in function persists into the next week, if not longer.”

McCully went on to explain that the healthier an artery is, the more responsive it is to changes in blood flow. An impaired flow-mediated dilation, as a result of a reduction in responsiveness, is an early sign of arterial damage that often foreshadows cardiovascular disease.

“We saw a definite effect of cigarettes on the arteries, even in young people who you would expect to be healthy,” he said.