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Quitting smoking reduces heart disease risk despite weight gain

By Jeremy Cockerill | February 5, 2010

Source: MedWire News

Stopping smoking can lead to weight gain and a worsening in some cardiovascular risk factors, Japanese research suggests, but it still markedly reduces an individual’s estimated risk of coronary heart disease.

Notably, levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol increased after quitting smoking, although total cholesterol levels also increased.

The team analyzed survey information from 1995 Japanese male smokers who had participated in an occupational health promotion study.

Participants had cardiovascular risk factors measured at baseline and over a 4-year period. Overall, 985 men continued to smoke during follow-up and 117 successfully quit for at least 6 months during this period.

Men who quit smoking experienced an average weight gain of 2.4 kg during the 4 years of follow-up, compared with 0.5 kg in continuing smokers.

Men who successfully stopped smoking for at least 6 months also had a worsening in several cardiovascular risk factors compared with continuing smokers.

These included systolic and diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, triglycerides, and fasting blood sugar levels.

However, HDL-cholesterol levels improved significantly more in those who had quit for at least 6 months than in continuing smokers, with rises of 3.7 mg/dl (0.096 mmol/l) versus 0.2 mg/dl (0.005 mmol/l).

When the overall instantaneous incidence risk of coronary heart disease prior to smoking cessation was assumed to be 1, the estimated risk for those who had quit smoking for at least 6 months was significantly reduced at 0.76.

This occurred despite the weight gain, and was mainly due to having quit smoking.

“These results suggest that coronary risk reduction after smoking cessation may be further decreased by inhibiting weight gain,” Unai Tamura (University of Yamanashi, Japan) and colleagues report in the Journal of Atherosclerosis and Thrombosis.

“It is necessary to disseminate to the public that many benefits attained by stopping smoking, despite the associated weight gain,” they add.