Death from a heart attack or stroke may be the first cardiovascular disease event in some people who smoke cigarettes, a study published Nov. 17 in the Journal of the American Heart Association found.
Researchers used data from nine long-term cohort studies of 106,165 adults free of cardiovascular disease (50.1 percent of which were smokers) in the U.S. to evaluate lifestyle factors, as well as cardiovascular and other health outcomes.
Lifespans with and without cardiovascular disease according to smoking status were estimated, and researchers also examined the association between smoking and cardiovascular events after accounting for death from other diseases. The follow up period was 10 to 25 years.
"Our findings note that preventing a heart attack, stroke or heart failure is vital, yet preventing unexpected sudden death as the first manifestation of cardiovascular disease is clearly a priority," Sadiya S. Kahn, MD, lead study author and assistant professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said in a press release. "People who smoke may not realize the harm cigarettes are causing their body until it’s too late."
Four key findings:
- Smoking was associated with cardiovascular disease development at an earlier age, by five years in middle-aged men and nearly four years in middle-aged women.
- For middle-aged women, those who smoked were nearly twice as likely as non-smokers to experience a fatal heart attack as a first cardiovascular event.
- Middle-aged men who smoked had a 79 percent chance of having a fatal cardiovascular disease event as their first sign of the disease.
- Researchers found the risk for cardiovascular disease started to increase significantly in young men who smoked near the 10-year follow-up mark while the increased risk for cardiovascular disease among young women who smoked became more evident near the 20-year follow-up mark.