Gaby
In a recent study, a team of South Korean researchers sought to determine whether the cardiovascular system of a cigarette smoker could eventually resemble that of someone who has never smoked. The findings revealed that this is indeed possible, but it requires a significant amount of time.
After a person quits smoking, it takes about two and a half decades for their risk of heart disease to fall to the same level as someone who has never smoked.
The results indicated that individuals who smoked for more than eight years have the same risk of heart attack or stroke as those who continue to smoke.
What Did the Researchers Find?
During the study, researchers analyzed health data from over 100,000 former smokers, as well as more than four million individuals who have never smoked.
The former smokers were examined decades after they had quit.
The team considered factors such as the participants’ age, the age at which they started smoking, the number of cigarettes smoked per day, and the age at which they quit.
The researchers found a dose-dependent relationship between smoking and cardiovascular risk. For people who smoked less, the risk of developing those conditions dropped significantly shortly after quitting, according to the Daily Mail.
The researchers concluded that people with at least eight years of smoking may need 25 years for their risk of heart attack or stroke to align with that of someone who has never smoked.
The authors wrote, “The likelihood of developing cardiovascular diseases in former heavy smokers is comparable to that of those who continue to smoke.”
The findings were published in JAMA.
Why Is This Research Important?
Previous studies have shown that smoking is linked to heart failure. This condition occurs when the heart muscle does not pump blood effectively, usually because it is too weak or stiff. As a result, the heart cannot supply organs and tissues with the oxygen and nutrients they need to function properly.
Tobacco contains about 7,000 chemicals that can damage blood vessels, contributing to many of the heart-related problems caused by smoking.
Worldwide, more than 8 million people die from cigarette smoking each year; 1.3 million of them are non-smokers who die from the effects of secondhand smoke.
