Smoking is harmful to health. Researchers have now examined how the risk of heart disease and death changes even if you smoke just a few cigarettes a day.
Anyone who smokes is damaging their health. According to numerous studies, smokers have a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases, lung diseases and cancer. This is not new. Now researchers have examined how many cigarettes a day pose serious health risks.
The results amazed even the scientists: Consuming just two cigarettes a day significantly increases the risk of suffering a heart attack. General mortality also increases significantly compared to non-smokers.
This is reported by an international research group in the specialist journal “PLOS Medicine”. “Even we were surprised at how harmful even small amounts of cigarettes are,” emphasized Michael J. Blaha, author of the associated study. Blaha is a professor of cardiology and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center in Baltimore, Maryland.
For the analysis, Blaha’s team evaluated almost two dozen long-term studies with a total of more than 300,000 participants from the USA and Brazil. On average, the test subjects were observed for almost 15 years regarding their risk of heart attack and around 20 years regarding their mortality.
The result: Those who smoked two to five cigarettes a day had a 50 percent higher risk of suffering a heart attack. The probability of dying from any cause during the observation period was even 60 percent higher than for non-smokers.
As cigarette consumption increased, the risk of serious illnesses also increased: with more than 20 cigarettes a day, the risk of heart disease was increased by 84 percent; mortality was three times higher than for people who did not smoke. And with fewer cigarettes? “Smoking one or fewer cigarettes per day was associated with an increased risk of all heart diseases and causes of death examined, with the exception of stroke and atrial fibrillation,” Blaha concluded.
The researchers also examined how the risk changed when subjects stopped smoking. According to the team, the greatest positive effect occurs in the first ten years after quitting. Nevertheless, even three decades later, the risk remains higher than for people who have never smoked in their lives. The authors emphasize that the results once again show that there is no “safe amount” of cigarettes.
“Overall, the results suggest that no level of smoking is without risk,” said cardiologist Blaha. The researchers therefore recommend that smokers quit completely instead of just reducing their consumption.
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