Smoking Bad for Health and Quality of Life

Smoking Bad for Health and Quality of Life

Smoking Bad for Health and Quality of Life

Sept. 18, 2000 -- If the mountain of evidence about the dangers of smoking still hasn't convinced you to quit, here's one more reason: After undergoing a procedure to open clogged arteries in the heart, researchers found that smokers reaped less quality-of-life benefits than nonsmokers.

In a study that appears in the Sept. 19 issue of Circulation, a research team led by David J. Cohen, MD, MSc, examined more than 1400 patients who had recently undergone a balloon procedure to open clogged arteries in the heart called "angioplasty." The researchers are from the cardiovascular division at Beth Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

The study participants answered a quality-of-life questionnaire on factors such as physical function, pain, vitality, and mental health. The researchers found that one year after angioplasty, people who continued to smoke had fewer improvements in quality of life than nonsmokers or those who quit within one year following the procedure.

Peter B. Berger, MD, points out that a previous study showed that if patients stop smoking after angioplasty, then they did much better. "And recently, a similar analysis was done and found again, that patients who stopped smoking did much better after heart surgery," he says. Berger, who was not involved in the study, is an associate professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine in Rochester, Minn.

Richard Heuser, MD, agrees. "This study shows that smoking makes a difference in general health perception, pain, social function, and all of the other categories that they assessed."

It's a great incentive for people to stop smoking, he adds. Heuser, who was not involved in the study, is the medical director of the Phoenix Heart Center in Arizona.

In an editorial accompanying the study, Robert Califf, MD, raises some ethical questions regarding the use of costly medicine in people, such as smokers, who may not benefit as much from these procedures because of the smoking. If a person chooses to smoke, then "what is our obligation regarding using expensive medical care technologies in people who continue to smoke?" Califf is with the division of cardiology in the department of medicine at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.