CIGARETTE SMOKING AND HYPERTENSION: ANY CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP

Abstract

The blood vessel is one of the organs that are adversely influenced by smoking. The aim of this work is to study the relationship between cigarette smoking (dose and duration) with the hypertension. Two hundred subjects were included in this study, classified into control group (100 subjects healthy normotensive males), their age range was between 20-50 years (age mean was 35.72 + 8.97 years) and patients group (100 male hypertensive patients ) of similar age range, their age mean was 43.64 + 63 years, Each individual included in this study was asked about cigarette smoking habit , number of cigarettes per day, and number of years they smoke. Manual auscultator measurement of systolic and diastolic arterial blood pressure was carried out for all subjects. The study shows a significant increase of systolic blood pressure in hypertensive patients smoking more than 10 year duration, while diastolic blood pressure significantly increases before 5 year duration of smoking and became highly significant above 10 years. On other hand, the systolic and diastolic blood pressure show a significant increase in those smoke less than 20 cigarettes per day ,and highly significant in people smoke more than 20 cigarettes per day at P< 0.001. In conclusion, there are a significant relationship between the smoking (duration and dose) with hypertension, particularly in those who smoke more than 20 cigarettes per day for more than 10 years.