Tobacco and Cooking Oil Smoke is associated with Heart Attacks
Not only cigarette smoke are harmful, but also smoke from the cooking oil and wood smoke. Because such kinds of smoke can affected cardiovascular function of people in only 10 minutes, according to a recent study made in the University of Kentucky.
A previous study showed that cigarette smoke can harm human heart. The people which participated in this investigation were exposed to different types of smoke (tobacco, cooking oil and wood smoke). At this experiment participated forty healthy non-smokers (21 women, 19 men) whose average age was 35 participated in the experiment.
People were exposed to low levels of common pollutants and measured their cardiovascular and cardio respiratory responses. 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.
At the end of the investigation researchers found that cardiovascular responses during brief exposures were similar to those found during longer or higher-level exposures. They also found that men respond to environmental tobacco smoke with a greater increase in indexes of sympathetic elapse to blood vessels than do women.
Researchers explained that during investigation they observed that human 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.
These all evidences indicate 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.
Researchers also measured respiratory and cardiovascular function, including heart rate variability, breathing and blood pressure, for to see how the heart, circulatory and respiratory systems were reacting to the pollutants.
The study found 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. But women did not have a strong response to the pollutants like men.
In general a person’s relative risk due to air pollution is small compared with the impact of established cardiovascular risk factors such as smoking, obesity, or high blood pressure. However, this is a serious public health problem because an enormous number of people are exposed over an entire lifetime.
