Light Smoking and Heart Disease

Even Social Smokers are at Risk for Heart Disease

In a 2008 study in the journal Ultrasound Medicine and Biology, young adults smoking less than a pack a week abstained for 2 days and then smoked again. Tests showed a loss of some arterial function after participants had smoked just two cigarettes.

Smoking cigarettes -- and to a slightly lesser extent, smoking cigars and pipes -- plays a major role in the accumulation of fatty plaque in the arteries, which is a major risk factor for heart attack and stroke. Smoking also leads to cardiovascular disease by several other pathways:

• Raising blood pressure
• Increasing propensity of the blood to clot
• Decreasing a smoker's ability to exercise
• Reducing the "good" cholesterol levels, or HDL

When combined with oral contraceptive use or a family history of heart disease, smoking greatly increases a person's cardiovascular risk.

There is a trend toward social smoking among college students, which is alarming because smoking exacerbates heart disease risk more in people under age 50 than in those who are older.

The solution is to quit smoking altogether. Efforts to quit are most likely to succeed when you combine several tactics, such as a doctor's guidance, nicotine gum and changes in the routines you associate with smoking. One year after you quit, your elevation in heart disease risk will be cut in half. After 15 years, the difference is little in comparison to that of lifelong nonsmokers.

Quitting in your late 30s can add 5 years to your life if you're a man and 3 years if you're a woman.

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