Source:Health day

URL of this page: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_57482.html

Smoking Boosts Blood Pressure in Women

Women who smoke two packs of cigarettes a day have a 21 percent greaterrisk of developing high blood pressure, increasing their risk for heartdisease, a new study found.

Women who smoke less have less of a risk, but even those who smoke apack a day significantly increase their risk for high blood pressure, alsoknown as hypertension, the study said.

The findings are published in the Nov. 20 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

"Women who smoke a pack a day are at increased risk of developing hypertension," said lead researcher Dr. Thomas S. Bowman, who's with the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System and an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School. "Women who smoke two packs a day are at evengreater risk," he said.

For the study, Bowman's team collected data on 28,236 women who tookpart in the Women's Health Study. During a follow-up of 9.8 years, 30.4 percentof the women developed high blood pressure.

The researchers found that women who smoked 15 or more cigarettes a dayhad a 11 percent greater risk of developing high blood pressure, compared withwomen who never smoked. Women who smoked 25 or more cigarettes a day had a 21percent greater risk.

For women who smoked fewer than 15 cigarettes a day, the risk for highblood pressure was a relatively insignificant 4 percent, the researchers found.

Whether quitting smoking reduces the risk of high blood pressure isn't known, Bowman said, but he suspects that the longer a person smokes, thegreater the risk.

Bowman noted the high blood pressure can lead to heart disease andstroke. "Hypertension may be the pathway to strokes and cardiovasculardeath and heart attacks," he said.

Dr. Harlan M. Krumholz, a professor of medicine at Yale University School of Medicine, said the study findings are yet another reason not tosmoke.

"We really don't need another reason for people not to smoke,"he said. "This study adds to the information about another potential mechanism by which smoking contributes to adverse outcomes."

Aside from the 5,000 chemical and known carcinogens in cigarettes, high blood pressure is another threat that comes with the habit of smoking, Krumholzsaid.