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.

Parents’ Smoking Harms their Kids Health

As it is known, cigarette smoke is harmful for children. That’s why in many countries cigarettes smoking were banned in public places especially where kids are. But a recent study found that almost half of Victoria's cigarette smokers still light up around children, despite a no-smoking policy.

However another new research launched of a new ad campaign by Quit Victoria, titled "Cigarettes are eating you and your kids alive", found an important amelioration in the attempts of parents to keep tobacco smoke away from their kids.

Researchers found that in 1998 just over half of surveyed households had home smoking bans, but in the recent survey just under three quarters of respondents said about their household's regular smokers which smoke always or usually smoked outside.

If there is a child in the house, it is even more likely (82 percent) the smoker will go outside. Parents were much more likely to protect their children from cigarette smoke when they were aged under five, explained researchers. There was a belief that as their child gets older they are better able to tolerate or avoid smoke exposure.

But households in lower socio-economic areas were less likely to urge home smoking bans.

Statistics showed that there has been an increase over the last 11 years in the proportion of smokers who do not smoke at all when they are around children: from 45 percent in 1998 to 56 percent in 2008.

Dr. Rob Roseby of the Royal Children's Hospital Centre for Adolescent Health, said: "Passive smoking leads to a long, sad catalogue of risks in children. Smoking causes trans-generational disease. Children and toddlers are exposed primarily at the home, and then later at places like child care or shopping centers."

Many studies have showed that if a parent smokes their child is twice as likely to go to hospital with pneumonia, twice as likely to get ear disease that must be treated with surgery. They also have increased risks of asthma, coughs and sneezes, SIDS and life-threatening meningococcal infection.

Victorian Health Minister Daniel Andrews, who launched the new anti-smoking campaign, said that Victorians owed it to their children to take a tough stand on this issue.