Smoking keeps blood vessels open

Smoking cigarettes may reduce the risk of a blood vessel closing up after angioplasty and other minimally invasive procedures. Still, this one potential benefit for smoking is easily outweighed by the numerous well-known risks associated with the habit.In patients with diabetes and other risk factors, arteries in the legs can become blocked or narrowed over time. With angioplasty, a catheter with a tiny balloon is inserted and then inflated re-opening the blocked vessel. This immediate re-opening, however, is only half the battle; the real goal is to have the artery stay open for years to come.Smokers exhibit a higher blood concentration of carbon monoxide, a potent anti-inflammatory agent known to open up blood vessels. Carbon monoxide can also block the growth of certain cells that lead to blood vessel blockage.

Researchers from the University of Vienna in Austria, conducted a study of 650 patients who were treated for blood vessel problems in their legs. The subjects were divided into groups based on the number of cigarettes smoked per day: non-smokers, light smokers (1 to 9), habitual smokers (10 to 20), or heavy smokers (> 20).A year after their procedure, light smokers were 51 percent more likely to experience a recurrent blockage than non-smokers. In contrast, habitual and heavy smokers were about 50 percent less likely to develop a repeat blockage than their non-smoking peers.

Despite the apparent benefits of smoking at least 10 cigarettes per day in preventing re-blockage, the findings certainly do not suggest that smoking should be recommended to patients or patients should be treated with carbon monoxide inhalation therapy.

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