A new study from the University of Manitoba has found strong evidence linking tobacco smoking to an increased risk of high blood pressure, also known as hypertension.
The research also shows that testing a person’s urine can be a valuable tool in identifying smokers and measuring their risk.
The study was led by Dr. Setor Kunutsor, a cardiovascular epidemiologist and professor of internal medicine at UM’s Max Rady College of Medicine. His team’s findings were recently published in the Journal of Human Hypertension.
It’s long been known that smoking is bad for heart health, but experts have debated for years whether smoking directly causes high blood pressure.
Part of the confusion comes from the fact that most previous studies relied on people reporting their own smoking habits, which can often be inaccurate. Some people forget how much they smoke or choose not to tell the truth.
This new study took a different approach. The researchers looked at data from about 3,300 adults in the Netherlands who had never been diagnosed with high blood pressure. The average age of the participants was 49.
Each person’s smoking status was checked in two ways: by asking them directly and by testing their urine for a substance called cotinine. Cotinine is a chemical that stays in the body after someone uses tobacco, making it a reliable way to measure tobacco exposure.
Over an average of seven years, more than 800 people in the study developed high blood pressure. The analysis showed that both light and heavy smokers had a higher risk of developing hypertension—whether smoking was measured by self-reporting or urine testing.
However, the urine test often picked up smoking activity that people didn’t report, showing that self-reporting may underestimate the real health risks.
Interestingly, the study also found that some people who claimed to have never smoked showed signs of past smoking when their urine was tested. More than half of these “never smokers” actually had a history of smoking.
This is important because former smokers still face a higher risk of heart and blood pressure problems compared to people who never smoked at all.
Dr. Kunutsor’s team says that using urine tests to check for cotinine could give doctors a more accurate understanding of a patient’s exposure to tobacco, including secondhand smoke.
However, they also say that urine tests should be combined with honest conversations about a patient’s smoking history, since past smoking habits also affect health.
Looking ahead, the researchers believe that new technologies like wearable biosensors could help track tobacco exposure over longer periods of time. This could lead to better research and help doctors manage the heart health of their patients more effectively.
In short, the study confirms that smoking increases the risk of high blood pressure and shows how urine testing can help doctors more accurately identify at-risk patients. These findings could play an important role in improving heart health for smokers and former smokers alike.
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The study is published in the Journal of Human Hypertension.
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