Researchers from Holland reported earlier this month at the American Heart Association Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention that offspring of women who smoked while pregnant had more atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) than offspring of women who did not smoke.
Between 1999 and 2000, the investigators studied 732 individuals born between 1970 - 1973, measuring their carotid artery intima-media thickness (CIMT) scores. The CIMT score (essentially the thickness of the wall of the carotid artery) is considered a generalized measure of atherosclerosis. The researchers discovered that participants whose mothers smoked during pregnancy had a significantly higher CIMT score than those whose mothers did not smoke while pregnant. Furthermore, the CIMT score also correlated with the number of cigarettes the mothers smoked, suggesting a "dose-related" response.
DrRich comments:
Potentially the most disturbing thing about this study is that the offspring of smoking mothers had a significantly increased atherosclerosis burden decades later, when they were young adults. Predictably these individuals have a much higher risk of developing premature cardiovascular disease such as heart attack or stroke.
This study is not perfect. It is known that children of smoking parents are more likely to become smokers themselves, so perhaps some or most of the vascular disease these young adults have stems from their own smoking habits. But either way, whether it is purely the smoking during pregnancy or just the fact that parents smoke, children of smokers appear to be at higher risk than children of non-smokers.
Sources:
Uiterwaal CS, Bots ML, Grobbee DE, et al. Parental smoking and vascular damage in young adult offspring: Is early life exposure critical? The Atherosclerosis Risk in Young Adults Study. 2007 Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention; February 28-March 3, 2007, 2007; Orlando, FL. Poster 287.
