The study, whose authors include a Portuguese researcher, analysed 1500 smokers, former smokers and people who had never smoked
A study that brought together researchers from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (FMUP) and the University of Lorraine, France, concluded that smoking may be responsible for the ageing of the heart in about 20 years.
"The cellular lesion induced by cigarette smoking and the inflammatory immune response are the two probable mechanisms that explain the premature aging [of the heart] and the increased incidence of chronic diseases in smokers," said the researcher from the Cardiovascular Research Unit of the FMUP.
Speaking to Lusa news agency, João Pedro Ferreira, who is one of the authors of the study carried out with citizens of Lorraine, explained that it was found that "smokers, even if they were 20 years old, had a vascular age similar to a person and 35 or 40 years old".
"And they had an expression of proteins [known to initiate and facilitate atherosclerotic lesion progression] in their blood that showed they had an activation of inflammation of inflammatory pathways. Some proteins that are associated with the occurrence of some cancers were activated. Therefore, it is concluded that tobacco itself creates an inflammatory profile in the blood that can lead to vessel damage and create other diseases, because it causes small lesions in the cells over time," he added.
The study consisted of tests carried out on a population of over 1500 smokers, former smokers and people who had never smoked. The sample included people aged between 18 and 70, with most being adults between 40 and 50.
"The researchers found that, despite being about 18 years younger, current smokers had similar levels of hypertension, diabetes and vascular damage [cholesterol plaques and vascular stiffness] to older people who had never smoked," says, in turn, the information sent to Lusa by FMUP.
João Pedro Ferreira pointed out that the cardiovascular damage was compared and that, when it was found that the vessel was more rigid, it means that it has less elasticity and is working worse. "Being more rigid is like being damaged, being more aged", summarized.
The researcher safeguarded that the cases studied were not "necessarily" patients, as this was a population study that sought to find out habits and lifestyles.
"This is an observational study. We are looking at the characteristics of people compared to others. We cannot infer that there is a causality. We cannot infer that tobacco causes diabetes. What we can say is that there is a relationship between people who smoked and some proteins that seem to indicate some lower tolerance to glucose, to sugar", he exemplified.
João Pedro Ferreira highlighted, finally, that "the group that had already quit smoking had an attenuation of the effects, but these were not completely reversed".
"Obviously it is good to stop smoking as soon as possible, but the study concludes that the vascular damage that had already occurred in the past has improved, but not reversed", he concluded, stressing that the study warns that, "even if the person feels well, there is damage that is happening in the body that is silent and that damage can bring consequences" such as myocardial infarction or strokes, peripheral artery disease, as well as lung, throat or bladder cancer.
According to data from the World Health Organization, tobacco is responsible for over six million deaths worldwide each year.
This study joins João Pedro Ferreira with researchers Tripti Rastogi, Nicolas Girerd, Zohra Lamiral, Emmanuel Bresso, Erwan Bozec, Jean-Marc Boivin, Patrick Rossignol and Faiez Zannad.
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