Smoking Children with Diabetes Increase the Risk of Heart Disease

Tobacco use is spreading among children and adults with diabetes and unfortunately few health workers are recommending then to stop smoking, according to a research.
Children and adults who have diabetes are already at an increased risk for heart disease before they start smoking, but several studies have analyzed the correlation between smoking and heart disease risk factors in children with diabetes.

Sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Diabetes, researches analyzed smoking and heart disease risk factors of a group of 3,466 children and adults with diabetes aged 10 to 22 years.
They found out that 10% of children having first type diabetes and 16% of children with second type were currently using some tobacco product as: cigarettes, smokeless tobacco or cigars. Less than half of them stated that they had been advised by their health provider to stop smoking.

“We found that a significant proportion of young people with diabetes are current cigarette smokers, who greatly increase the risk for heart disease. Smoking is preventable, that is why adequate smoking prevention programs are needed in order to stop hear disease in young people with diabetes,” stated, Reynolds, PhD and research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research and Evaluation.

The study discovered that the prevalence of current tobacco use in young people with first type of diabetes constitutes 1.3 % of 10- to 14-year-olds, 14.9 % of 15- to 19-year-olds, and 27 % of those 20 years and older. Among young people with second type of diabetes, 4.4 % of 10- to 14-year-olds were currently smokers, 12.9 % of 15- to 19-year-olds were smokers, and 37.3 % in youth 20 years and older were smokers.
The researches also found incipient characters of heart disease among those individuals who smoke. Those young people who were past and current smokers had higher levels of such indices as: LDL and HDL (cholesterol levels) and more physical inactivity than those who do not smoke.

“Smoking is an absolutely preventable risk factor for cardiovascular and various other diseases. While this holds for all children, it is particularly true for children with diabetes,” stated study co-author Stephen R. Daniels, professor and chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Pediatrician at The Children’s Hospital in Denver.

The risk of hear disease is rather increased in adults who have diabetes in comparison to adults without diabetes, and smoking may greatly increase the risk. Approximately 90% of adult smokers began smoking before attain their majority. The American Diabetes Association underlines the importance of smoking prevention programs for those individuals.