A new study confirms that cigarette smokers have stiffer arteries than nonsmokers but suggests these adverse blood vessel changes are reversible with smoking cessation, although it may take more than a decade off cigarettes for the arteries to recover.

“Smoking is a major risk factor not only for lung disease and cancer but also for heart attack, stroke and heart failure,” Dr. Noor A. Jatoi from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, points out in a statement from the American Heart Association.

It’s been shown that smoking a single cigarette, exposure to passive or “second-hand” smoke, and chronic smoking all lead to stiffer arteries, which may prevent the arteries from expanding when muscles, including the heart, demand more oxygen. Stiff arteries put increased strain on the heart, often leading to high blood pressure.

Jatoi’s team compared differences in “arterial stiffness” among 150 current smokers, 136 ex-smokers and 268 nonsmokers. “We categorized ex-smokers according to how long they were off cigarettes - under 1 year, more than 1 but less than 10 years and more than 10 years of smoking cessation,” Jatoi explained.

Current and ex-smokers of only 1 year had significantly stiffer arteries than nonsmokers, the team reports in the medical journal Hypertension.

In ex-smokers, duration of smoking cessation was directly related to arterial stiffness. There was some improvement after 1 to 10 years off cigarettes, but arterial stiffness parameters only reached normal levels after more than a decade without cigarettes.

“Our study reinforces the message that smoking cessation is an important step smokers can take to enhance the quality and length of their lives,” said Jatoi. The study shows both the unhealthy effects of smoking and the benefit of smoking cessation on the blood vessels.

“The longer one stops smoking the better,” Jatoi added.

The current findings, the researchers say, support studies showing that the risk of heart attack and stroke among smokers falls with smoking cessation for periods ranging from 3 to 20 years.

SOURCE: Hypertension, March 2007.