Children who are exposed to passive smoking could suffer irreversible artery damage.
New research suggests second-hand smoke could thicken children's artery walls, a European Society of Cardiology news release reported. Researchers said being exposed to smoke from both parents aged the children's arteries by about 3.3 years.
Thickened arteries can lead to heart attack or stroke later in life.
The researchers looked at 2,401 participants in the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study that began in 1980; These subjects were followed from between the ages of three and 18 into adulthood. The subject's parents were asked about their smoking habits and once the participants were adults and ultrasound was performed to determine the state of their arteries.
The team found the carotid intima-media thickness (IMT), which is "a measurement of the thickness of the innermost two layers of the arterial wall," the news release reported.
They found that in adulthood the carotid IMT was about 0.015 millimeters thicker in individuals who had been exposed to smoke as children from both parents.
"Our study shows that exposure to passive smoke in childhood causes a direct and irreversible damage to the structure of the arteries. Parents, or even those thinking about becoming parents, should quit smoking. This will not only restore their own health but also protect the health of their children into the future," Doctor Seana Gall, a research fellow in cardiovascular epidemiology at the Menzies Research Institute Tasmania and the University of Tasmania, said in the news release.
"While the differences in artery thickness are modest, it is important to consider that they represent the independent effect of a single measure of exposure - that is, whether or not the parents smoked at the start of the studies - some 20 years earlier in a group already at greater risk of heart disease. For example, those with both parents smoking were more likely, as adults, to be smokers or overweight than those whose parents didn't smoke," she said.
