Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Cigarette smoking is known to cause hardening of the arteries that carry blood to the body. This hardening increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes, however the effect of smoking on the arteries at a young age is less understood. People with hard arteries may have no problem at rest, but they may have difficulty to do demanding activities. This difficulty may only show after exercise. Therefore the goal of this study was to see whether young smokers have hardening of the arteries at rest, but also when the body is stressed by exercise. Young healthy smokers and non-smokers between the ages of 18 and 45 performed an exercise test until exhaustion. The hardening of the arteries was measured over the skin before and after the exercise test. Non-smokers were tested once, and smokers were tested on 3 days: 1) after not smoking for 12 hours, 2) after smoking a cigarette before the test and 3) after chewing gum with nicotine. The results of this study have helped us to understand how smoking harms the arteries. Young smokers had harder arteries after the exercise test than non-smokers. Smoking a cigarette before the exercise test was even worse. During exercise smokers were not able to exercise as long and did not reach the same heart rate as non-smokers. This study shows us that smoking even at a young age has negative effects on the health of the arteries. The arterial test is a new way to uncover the harm that smoking causes to the arteries, and could be used in the future to identify smokers who have an increased risk of poor artery health.