A Bad Mix: Diabetes and Smoking in Teens

Healthcare experts are currently drawing attention to the fact that a large portion of teens suffering from diabetes are still smoking, which exposed them to increased risks of developing heart diseases early on in life.

Diabetics are through the very nature of their disease more prone towards becoming obese, suffering heart attacks, strokes or other cardiovascular conditions, but smoking makes things even worse for them.

The new investigation also discovered that a fairly limited number of children and young adults receive advice on the effects that smoking can have on their health. The effects diabetics will experience add to the ones that every smoker will, such as increased risk of developing lung cancer.

Scientists with the SEARCH Study Group compiled the new report, which they published online in the latest issue of the esteemed Journal of Pediatrics.

Past studies have failed to explore the connection between smoking and heart diseases in diabetic patients, especially children, until now. Some works in the field exist, but they provide an over-look, rather than an in-depth analysis.

This particular survey looked at records belonging to a group of 3,466 ethnically and racially diverse children and young adults, ages 10 to 22, who live in the United States.

The main goals of the research was to establish tobacco consumption patterns and heart disease risk factors that may be affecting this particularly vulnerable subgroup of the general population.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Diseases (NIDDKS) provided the necessary funds for the research team.

“We found a substantial proportion of youth with diabetes are current cigarette smokers, which greatly adds to their already elevated risk for heart disease,” explains research Kristi Reynolds, PhD, MPH.

The expert, who is the lead author of the new study, is also a research scientist and epidemiologist at the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation.

“Smoking is preventable, so aggressive smoking prevention and cessation programs are needed to prevent or delay heart disease in youth with diabetes,” she goes on to say.

The study showed that as much as 10 percent of teen type I diabetes sufferers were consuming either cigarettes, cigars or smokeless tobacco, whereas some 16 percent of type II diabetes sufferers did the same.

Less than 50 percent of study participants reported having received counsel on the issue from a doctor.

“Cigarette smoking is a completely preventable risk factor for cardiovascular and other diseases,” adds scientist Stephen R. Daniels, MD, PhD, a coauthor of the journal entry.

“While this is true for all children, it is especially true for children with diabetes because of the increased risk of cardiovascular disease in that population,” adds the expert, who holds an appointment as a professor and chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

He is also the Pediatrician-in-Chief at The Children's Hospital in Denver.