Smoking ups leg artery disease risk

Women who smoke are significantly at a greater risk of developing clogged arteries in the legs, a new study suggests.

Researchers followed nearly 40,000 women aged 45 and older for 13 years, looking for a link between their smoking habit and peripheral artery disease.

Peripheral artery disease or PAD is a condition in which plaques are built in the arteries extremities mostly the legs. People with PAD are about four to five times more likely to experience a heart attack or stroke.

Smaller studies had linked PAD to smoking in men but the effect of quitting the habit on lowering the risk of this disease has never been studied.

The new research showed that women who smoked 15 or more cigarettes per day were 10 times more likely to develop the symptoms of PAD. The risk of developing PAD, however, was significantly lower in those who had given up their habit.

According to the data published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the risk of developing PAN among the women who had kicked off smoking was only three times higher than those who had never smoked.

In addition, the more cigarettes the women smoked per day or the longer was the duration of their habit, the higher was their risk of developing PAN.

The blood analysis of some participants suggested that smoking increases the levels of certain inflammatory proteins associated with PAD.

"Our most important finding, in my view, is that smoking cessation substantially reduces this risk," said lead author David Conen of the University Hospital Basel in Switzerland.

"We found a gradual decrease in risk with an increased duration of smoking abstinence, highlighting the importance of smoking cessation," he added.

Researchers also urged doctors to be more cautious about the signs and symptoms of PAD in their patients who smoke.