Smoking triples risk of death from heart disease and stroke: Study

Smoking is killing 17 Australians a day from stroke, heart attack, and other cardiovascular conditions, according to a large-scale Australian study.

‘A population almost twice the size of Port Douglas is being wiped out in Australia each year, with smoking causing more than 6400 cardiovascular deaths, including from heart attack and stroke.’

 

That is Professor Emily Banks from the ANU National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, lead author of the world-first study.

 

Published in BMC medicine, the study utilised health information from 188,167 cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer-free people who joined the Sax Institute’s 45 and Up Study. They were monitored for up to 36 different types of CVD over seven years, making the study the first research to trace the effects of smoking on the entire cardiovascular system.

 

‘That includes investigating the risk of heart attack, stroke, heart failure, heart muscle disease, rhythm problems, and gangrene in Australians from every walk of life: men, women, city, country, rich, poor,’ Professor Banks said.

 

‘We found there is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Smoking causes terrible harm across the board.’

 

That harm includes around three times the risk for people who smoke dying from CVD compared to people who have never smoked, and double the risk of death from a heart attack, heart failure or stroke. People who smoke are also five times more likely to develop peripheral CVD diseases such as gangrene.

 

Ultimately, smoking was found to lead to 11,400 coronary heart hospitalisations per year – that’s a rate of 31 per day – and 17 deaths a day from heart attack, strokes and other conditions arising from CVD.

 

And for those who believe there is some sanctuary in ‘light smoking’ – that is, an average of five cigarettes a day – the research has further bad news, with a doubling in the risk of death from CVD among this population, a result researchers described as ‘extremely alarming’.

 

Dr Sarah White, Director of Quit Victoria, believes the study highlights the danger of underestimating the risks of even light smoking.

 

‘If you are a light or social smoker who thinks “just a few” won’t hurt, this study really shows you’re kidding yourself that it’s not doing damage,’ she said.

 

The study showed one very effective strategy for smokers to immediately improve their CVD health: quitting smoking, which markedly reduced risk of all types of CVD and CVD-related diseases compared to continuing to smoke.

 

‘Quitting at any age provides a whole host of health and other benefits and quitting by age 45 avoids about 90% of the cardiovascular risks of smoking,’ Dr White said.

 

‘No matter how much you smoke or how long you have smoked, the best time to stop is right now.’

 

Professor Banks was keen to make it clear that the link between CVD risk and smoking could not be overstated.

 

‘If a smoker has a heart attack or a stroke, it is more likely than not that it was caused by smoking,’ she said.

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News References: https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/smoking-triples-risk-of-death-from-heart-disease-a