AHA warns young males - More you Smoke More you Stroke

Men below the age of 50 who smoked fewer than 11 cigarettes daily were 46 percent more likely to have a stroke than those who never smoked, while those who consumed at least two packs a day, were nearly 5 times, more likely to have a stroke.

Tobacco use is highly prevalent in India. Surgery statistic on 2017 showed that 28.6 percent of all adults (26.7 crores) use tobacco in some form or other. Nowadays, an increasing number of young adults are resorting to tobacco use. Due to this, they are increasingly becoming susceptible a whole range of diseases including ischemic stroke, the most common type of stroke.

Many previous types of research have categorically proven that smoking increases the risk of stroke among young women. However, not much is known about stroke risk in young men that results from smoking.

Janina Markidan, a medical student at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, and colleagues conducted a study to determine whether smoking increases the risk of strokes in men under the age of 50 years. The researchers found that smoking increased the risk of strokes occurs in men 50 as compared to men who never smoked. The study has been published in the journal Stroke.

Researchers studied 615 young men (age 15-49) who had a stroke in the prior three years. Researchers compared the men with stroke to 530 healthy men in the same age range. They also categorized participants as never smokers, former smokers, and current smokers. Current smokers were divided into groups based on the number of cigarettes smoked daily, 1 to 10, 11 to 20, 21 to 39 or 40 or more.

Researchers found:

• Men who smoked were 88 percent more likely to have a stroke than men who never smoked.


• Among current smokers, men who smoked fewer than 11 cigarettes daily were 46 percent more likely to have a stroke than those who never smoked.


• But the heavier smokers, smoking at least two packs a day, were nearly 5 times, more likely to have a stroke than those who never smoked.

"The key takeaway from our study on men younger than 50 is 'the more you smoke, the more you stroke,'" said lead study author Janina Markidan, B.A., a medical student at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.

"The goal is to get these young men to stop smoking, however, if they can smoke fewer cigarettes it could help reduce their stroke risk," Markidan said.

Researchers did not record the concurrent use of other tobacco products which could have affected results. They also did not control for factors such as alcohol consumption, physical activity or recall bias. However, similar findings in a Swedish study suggested that there was not a major effect of recall bias.

For more information click on the link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1161/STROKEAHA.117.018859