14 DAY TRIAL // A new research published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, concluded that if you smoke around children, you can cause them high blood pressure and other possible health problems even before they go to school.
This is actually the first study of its kind that shows that breathing tobacco smoke rises the blood pressure of kids are young as 4 or 5 years old.
Giacomo D. Simonetti, MD, is the first author of this study, and he was working at the University of Heidelberg in Germany before becoming an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of the University of Berne in Switzerland.
Within the German district that included Heidelberg, there was an extended standard school health exam, which measured the blood pressure of 4,236 kindergarten boys and girls, or an average age of 5.7 years.
Of parents reporting smoking, 28.5 % were fathers, 20.7 % mothers and 11.9 % were both parents.
The results showed that kids with a smoking parent were 21% more likely to have systolic blood pressure in the highest 15%, and these figures remained the same even after adjusting for other heart disease factors like birth weight, BMI and hypertension in the parents.
Simonetti explained that “the prevention of adult diseases like stroke or heart attack begins during childhood.
“Parental smoking is not only negative for children’s lung function, but poses a risk for their future cardiovascular health.
“Passive smoking increased the risk of having blood pressure at the upper end of normal, and some of these children already had high blood pressure,” Simonetti added.
It seems that mothers who smoke have a higher impact than fathers who smoke, and the researchers said that this could be due to the fact that most of the women's smoking was done inside the house, while men smoked mostly at work.
“Smoking adds to other risk factors,” said Simonetti, adding that “average blood pressure increased in proportion to the cumulative number of risk factors present.”
The researchers added that exposure to cigarette smoke could have the same impact on blood pressure in kids in the United States.
Simonetti explained that “childhood blood pressure consistently tracks into adult life.
“Removing any avoidable risk factors as soon as possible will help reduce the risk for heart disease later on and improve the long-term health of children.”
So the best is to encourage no-smoking environments, especially at home, and increase the chances of preserving the cardiovascular health of adults and children as well.
The study was funded by Manfred-Lautenschläger Stiftung, Reimann-Dubbers-Stiftung, Dietmar-Hopp-Stiftung and the Swiss Society of Hypertension AstraZeneca scholarship.