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Want to know what can kill faster than sudden cardiac death or sudden cessation of cardiac function? The answer is smoking. According to a new study, smoking can even kill women twice as fast, mainly due to sudden cardiac death.
"The more you smoke, the risk of sudden cardiac death will also be higher. But the most important is this risk can be eliminated by quitting smoking," said researcher roopinder Sandhu, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Alberta, Canada.
This conclusion was obtained after researchers observed the effects of smoking and the smoker's decision to quit the habit to the risk of sudden cardiac death in 101 018 women who took part in the Nurses Health Study for 30 years. At the end of the study, 351 cases of sudden cardiac death was reported by the researchers in the journal Circulation: Arrhythmia and electrophysiology.
From there, researchers concluded that the amount and duration of smoking is closely related to the risk of sudden cardiac death in women.
"Even with a very small amount of 1-14 sticks per day, the risk of sudden cardiac death affected her almost two-fold higher than women who do not smoke," said Sandhu as reported by WebMD, Wednesday (12/12/2012).
In addition, the researchers found is not less surprising:
- The risk of sudden cardiac death increases by 8 percent for every five years of time spent on women to smoke
- Heavy smokers who smoked 25 or more cigarettes per day are three times higher risk for developing sudden cardiac death than women who do not smoke
- Women who had smoked more than 35-year risk was 2.5 times higher risk of sudden cardiac death than those who had never smoked in her life
But the researchers also showed that smoking cessation will give direct effect on the risk of sudden cardiac death in women smokers, although this condition is still dependent on the status of heart disease.
The risk of sudden cardiac death will directly decrease among women who quit smoking but do not have a history of heart disease at all. Instead the risk reduction will be delayed for women with newly diagnosed heart disease and quit smoking. The risk will be down 15-20 years after quitting tobacco smoke.
According Shandu, this is because nicotine has a negative effect of short-term and long-term impact on the heart. First, nicotine is said to have a direct effect that can lead to erratic heartbeat and sudden cardiac death, and deadly.
Second, smoking also causes heart tissue to be injured. The problem of these effects will last a long time even though the smokers had quit that contribute to the risk of sudden cardiac death.
"Smoking is a risk factor for sudden cardiac death can be modified for women, either heart disease or not. But that does not mean the women just stand by and wait until a new first symptom of heart disease quit smoking," said Shandu.
Source: WebMD
