Stroke Could be the Sign of Cardiovascular Disease

Death from a heart attack or stroke may be the first Cardiovascular disease (CVD) event in some people who smoke cigarettes and CVD is the leading adverse health effect among smokers, according to new research. The findings of the study were published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Decades of research links cigarette smoking to premature death caused by Cardiovascular disease and other diseases such as lung cancer. According to the American Heart Association’s Heart and Stroke Statistical Update 2021, more than 480,000 US adults die each year from cigarette smoking. Despite increasing awareness about the health benefits of quitting smoking, more than 34 million adults in the United States still smoke cigarettes.

“There is often more awareness and concern about cancer as a result of smoking than heart disease, so we wanted to better define the risks of smoking-related to different types of Cardiovascular disease and, most importantly, to death,” said lead study author Sadiya S. Kahn, MD, M Sc, an assistant professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

The researchers pooled data from nine long-term cohort studies in the US to evaluate multiple lifestyle factors as well as  and other health outcomes. The analysis included data from 106,165 adults (50.4 per cent women; 16.2 per cent Black adults; 50.1% cigarette smokers) between the ages of 20 and 79, who were free of Cardiovascular disease at the start of the studies. The new analysis categorized participants by smoking status (either yes or no, self-reported at study enrollment); age (young: 20 to 39 years of age; middle-aged: 40 to 59; and older: 60 to 79); and sex.