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05/03/2014

Passive Smoking 'Damages Children's Arteries'

New research has suggested that passive smoking can cause long-lasting damage to children's arteries.

It also found that the damage can prematurely age children's blood vessels by more than three years.

The study, which was carried out in Finland and Australia with the findings published in the European Heart Journal, said that the damage would increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes for affected children in later life.

More than 2,000 children between the ages of three and 18 were involved in the research and ultrasound scans were used to show how children, whose both parents were smokers, had changes in the wall of a main artery that runs from the neck to the head. The report said the differences in carotid intima-media thickness were moderate, they were still significant and could still be detected some 20 years later when the child had reached adulthood.

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Study author, Dr Seana Gall, from the University of Tasmania, explained: "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."

The study added that other factors were taken into consideration, such as whether the children went on to become smokers themselves, but the findings did not change. When the effects were not seen, were in cases where only one parents was said to be a smoker. This could be because the exposure to passive smoke was not as high.

"We can speculate that the smoking behaviour of someone in a house with a single adult smoking is different," Dr Gall continued. "For example, the parent that smokes might do so outside away from the family, therefore reducing the level of passive smoking. However, as we don't have this type of data, this is only a hypothesis."

(JP/IT)

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"New research has suggested that passive smoking can cause long-lasting damage to children's arteries."