NEW ORLEANS, Mar 10 (Reuters Health) -- Smoking a cigar immediately impairs the ability of blood vessels to dilate, a study suggests.
The blood vessels of people who smoked a cigar dilated only 2% compared with 10% in people who hadn't smoked a stogie, Dr. Minerva Santo-Tomas and colleagues reported this week at the 48th annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology here.
"These results suggest that cigars are not an innocuous alternative to cigarette smoking," according to the report. Dilation of the blood vessels is necessary to increase blood supply to the body's tissues, including heart muscle, especially at times of stress, such as during exercise.
The researchers, from Mt. Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Florida, measured the amount of blood vessel dilation in a forearm artery of 24 healthy, nonsmokers after the blood flow was obstructed for a short period of time. The researchers then repeated the test, this time after half the group had smoked cigars while the other half had not.
Prior to smoking a cigar, the blood vessel reaction was similar in both groups. But after the cigar, there was only a 2% increase in dilation in cigar smokers compared with a 10% increase in controls, indicating an "acute impairment" in the ability of arteries to dilate.
The researchers also provided evidence that this impairment is due to an effect of cigar smoke on the endothelium, the layer of cells that line arteries.
"There's been a 30% increase in cigar smoking since 1996," Santo-Tomas noted. The increase has been especially sharp among teens and women, she added. "This shows that cigar smoking is harmful... but it may not be due to the nicotine in the smoke."
Comments on this posting?
Click here to post a public comment on the Trash Talk Bulletin Board.
Click here to send a private comment to the Junkman.