Passive smoking or breathing in secondhand smoke can be harmful to kids and may raise their risk of heart illness when they become adults.
A study published in the Circulation journal, says that parents who smoke and try to reduce their child’s exposure to their smoking, raise the risk of heart illness of their children as adults, than the kids whose parents do not smoke.
Otherwise, parents who smoke in front of their children and do not try to limit the exposure of the children to their smoking, increase the children’s risk for heart disease by four times than children of parents who do not smoke at all.
In the study were included and followed more than 1,500 Finnish children for over 20 years. They started the research in 1980 – 1983 by measuring the cotinine level in children’s blood and they followed up again in 2001 – 2007 to measure the carotid plaque level in already grown adults. The children with higher cotinine levels had higher carotid plaque levels too. The increase in the carotid plaque level can cause heart disease.
This study is proof that children whose parents smoke in front of them are exposed to a higher risk of heart illness as an adult – stated the professor at the University of California San Francisco’s Center for Tobacco Control Education and Research Santos Glantz.
As stated by the Centers for Disease Control, almost 60% of kids between the years of 3 and 11 are exposed to passive smoking at home.
To limit the exposure of the kids to passive smoking, do not smoke at home in front of them. If you smoke without children’s presence change your clothes before you go near them. In this way, you can reduce the children’s risk of heart disease.