Secondhand tobacco smoke and smoke from cooking oil and wood smoke affected cardiovascular function of men and women who were exposed to small doses of the smoke for as little as 10 minutes, according to a study from the University of Kentucky.
The study confirmed previous findings that tobacco smoke could possibly harm cardiovascular function. In addition, it extended those findings by showing that:
- cardiovascular responses during brief exposures were similar to those found during longer or higher-level exposures
- the response occurs with different types of smoke (tobacco, cooking oil and wood smoke)
- men respond to environmental tobacco smoke with a greater increase in indexes of sympathetic outflow to blood vessels than do women
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. Women respond with a greater parasympathetic response, dubbed "rest and digest," which acts as a brake on the heart and blood pressure.
The study, Autonomic responses of men and women to particulate exposures, was conducted by Joyce McClendon Evans, Abhijit Patwardhan, Ashwin Jayanthi and Charles Knapp of the University of Kentucky; Roger Jenkins and Ralph Ilgner of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory; and Eric Hartman of CustomKYnetics, Inc. Ms. Evans will present the findings during the 122nd annual meeting of The American Physiological Society (www.the-aps.org/press), which is part of the Experimental Biology 2009 conference. The meeting will take place April 18-22 in New Orleans.
Controlled smoke exposures
Accumulating evidence indicates that an increase in air pollution is associated with an increase in heart attacks and deaths. These pollutants, including tobacco and cooking oil smoke, contain fine particles that evoke responses from heart and blood vessels indicating effects on their function.
This study briefly exposed people to low levels of common pollutants and measured their cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory responses. Forty healthy non-smokers (21 women, 19 men) whose average age was 35 participated in the experiment. The researchers exposed the participants to secondhand cigarette smoke, wood smoke or cooking oil smoke in separate trials as they sat in a 10-by-10-foot environmental chamber. The researchers cleared the air in the chamber after each trial.