Apples for Health- Smoke may be deadly for heart

Smoke may be deadly for heart

NEW ORLEANS, April 18 (UPI) -- Smoke particulates from tobacco, cooking oil and wood fires affect cardiovascular function after as little as 10 minutes of exposure, U.S. researchers say.

"I was surprised we got statistically significant results with this low level of exposure," Joyce Evans of the University of Kentucky in Lexington said in a statement. "If we can detect these effects with smaller exposures, then the public health hazard from cigarettes and other particulate exposures may have been underestimated."

The study also finds that, particularly among men, exposure to smoke changed breathing patterns, raised blood pressure oscillations in peripheral arteries and shifted control of heart rate toward sympathetic domination.

The sympathetic nervous system produces the "fight or flight" response, which drives the heart and blood pressure and may cause damage if activated too long, Evans says.

The researchers briefly exposed 21 women and 19 men to low levels of secondhand cigarette smoke, wood smoke or cooking oil smoke in separate trials and measured their cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory responses. All were healthy non-smokers. The average age was 35.

The findings are scheduled to be presented at the annual meeting of The American Physiological Society in New Orleans.