Bad news for cigarette smokers, your habit is not only risking your life but also the life of others! A new study shows that passive or second-hand smoking can be proven more harmful than we had estimated, having serious implications on one’s health, especially for young girls.
According to the latest finding, children, especially young girls who have been exposed to passive smoking in childhood, stand at greater risk of developing arthritis later in life. If you are exposing someone to tobacco from their early lives, you may put hem in the risk of developing Rheumatoid Arthritis and Ankylosing Spondylitis, inflammatory arthritis affecting the spine and large joints.
For the study and to analyse the impact of active and passive smoking on the risk of developing Rheumatoid Arthritis, a significant population of female volunteers born between 1925 and 1950 were prospectively followed since the year 1990. Exposure to passive smoking during childhood was found to be linked to Rheumatoid Arthritis risk and active smoking in adult life.
As per the findings, smokers, who had childhood passive exposure, the hazard ratio was 1.73 compared to non-smokers who were not exposed during childhood. Consequently, the hazard ratio was found to be 1.37 in active smokers who had not been exposed to passive smoke during childhood. The mean age at inclusion in the study was 49 years and the average duration of follow-up was 21.2 years.
Out of 70,598 women, a total of 1,239 patients self-reported developing Rheumatoid Arthritis, of which 350 cases were eligible for analysis of the link between active and passive smoking and 280 in the analysis of the link to a history of an intestinal transit disorder. To determine whether smoking is associated with more rapid spinal damage and disease progression seen on X-rays in Ankylosing Spondylitis, scientists drew a detailed review and meta-analysis of all the relevant and currently available studies.
The combined data suggested a significant link between smoking and cumulative spinal structural damage.
