Smoker Parents Endanger Kids’ Heart Health

Austrian researchers claim that smokers not only endanger their own lives but also that of their kids. The risk of oxidative injury among children and therefore the risk of cardiovascular disease is seen to be higher among children who have smoker parents.

smoking parentsInflammation results from oxidative stress and this in turn increases the chances of narrowing arteries and vascular damage. In the study, children’s cholesterol levels were examined and it was seen that those kids whose parents smoked, had higher oxidative stress markers than those kids who had non smoking parents.

This difference was very significant since children of smoking parents had 13.2 picograms per milliliter in plasma, where on the other hand, children of non-smoking parents had 7.1 pg/ml; which is almost half that of the kids of smoking parents.

The good news is however that this negative impact is not permanent. When parents quit smoking, within three months, the children were seen to have the same marker levels as that of nonsmoker parents’ kids.

The mother quitting smoking was seen to have a more positive impact than when the father quit the habit. However children benefited the most when both parents decided to quit the habit.

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