Stroke Survivors who Smoke Have Higher Risk of Additional Stroke, Heart Attack
Here is another reason why smoking is bad for you, researchers have found that smokers who survive a stroke have a higher risk of dying from another stroke or a heart attack than people who never smoked or quit smoking.
The study involved 1,589 people who had a stroke between the years 1996 and 1999. These people were tracked for more than 10 years.
Researchers found that compared to people who never smoked, smokers had a 30 percent higher chance of not surviving a stroke, and the risk of a poor outcome 28 days post-stroke remained at 42 percent higher for current smokers.
"This research provides fresh incentive to quit smoking now or never start because it shows smokers fare far worse after strokes than non-smokers," said Amanda Thrift, Ph.D., the study lead researcher from Monash University in Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
Researchers found that people who come from disadvantaged groups are more likely to smoke. Past studies have shown that people who start smoking early in life tend to suffer from more health complications than people who start smoking when they reach adulthood.
"We also found smoking had its greatest impact on younger patients. The people who smoked in our study were younger, more often male, and more often from a disadvantaged background. Although we want everyone to give up smoking, targeting this group could yield greater benefits with fewer dollars spent," Thrift said.
A recent study had pointed out that more young Americans are suffering from stroke now than before. Researchers found that between 1993 and 2005, incidence of stroke doubled in people who were less than 50 years of age. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), someone in the U.S. has a stroke every 40 seconds. Every four minutes someone dies of stroke in the country.