Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 16, Issue 23, 2010

Smoking appears to be always the most harmful risk factor for heart and blood vessels being targeted by some of the organs tobacco components [1-3]. Of these, primarily nicotine and its metabolites and carbon monoxide, the latter is not a product of tobacco fresh leaf but develops from lit cigarette, are strongly associated with the damage of cardiovascular system. Generally, the reviews on tobacco smoke indicate the dam Read More

The definition of smoking as the inhalation of the smoke of burned tobacco that may occur occasionally or habitually as a consequence of a physical addiction to some chemicals, primarily nicotine, cannot be fully accepted today since several clinical, biological, metabolic, epidemiologic, statistic and socio-economic factors which play a basic role in determining individual damage due to smoking are missing in this assess Read More

Cigarette smoking is a powerful cardiovascular risk factor and smoking cessation is the single most effective lifestyle measure for the prevention of a large number of cardiovascular diseases. Impairment of endothelial function, arterial stiffness, inflammation, lipid modification as well as an alteration of antithrombotic and prothrombotic factors are smoking-related major determinants of initiation, and acceleration of the ath Read More

Tobacco smoking is the most important preventable cause of cardiovascular disease. In this paper we review current epidemiological and pathophysiological evidence linking smoking with cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Among the effects of smoking there is the alteration of lipid metabolism through the increase in lipolysis, insulin resistance and tissue lipotoxicity. Smoking is both prothrombotic and atherogeni Read More

Tobacco smoking remains the second largest preventable cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Exposure to tobacco smoke causes coronary disease, atherosclerosis and ischaemic vessel disease. The degree of this risk is proportional to the amount of smoking and it varies from individual to individual because of between-individual differences in genetic background. While the chemical properties of tobacco smoke are relat Read More

Smoking is a significant independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease and is a leading cause of structural and functional alterations of the cardiovascular system. Increasing evidence supports the hypothesis that oxidative stress and endothelial dysfunction are the fundamental pathophysiological mechanisms linking cigarette smoking to cardiovascular disease. The cardiovascular system is a rich source of NADP Read More

Active and passive exposure to cigarette smoke (CS) increases the risk of, and has deleterious effects in, ischemic heart disease. Exposure to CS increases infarct size in experimental models of coronary occlusion and reperfusion. Among many possible mechanisms for these deleterious effects in intact animals and humans three have more substantial evidence: 1) functional alterations of endothelial cells, neutrophils and Read More

Accumulating evidence indicates that circulating endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) derived from bone marrow contribute to reendothelialization of injured vessels as well as neo-vascularization of ischemic lesions in either a direct or an indirect way. Moreover, the number and/or the functional activity of EPCs are inversely correlated with risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Among the different risk factors, cigarette smoking i Read More

Chronic smoking is associated with functional and structural vascular changes underlying inflammatory processes responsible for plaque formation and rupture. Cyclooxygenase (COX) is the key enzyme linking smoking action to inflammatory damages: it is responsible for the conversion of arachidonic acid to prostanoids, and lipid mediators involved in most of pathological processes. Two COX isoenzymes have been charact Read More

Cigarette smoking is a powerful human germ cell mutagen and teratogen. Congenital heart defects (CHD) are the most prevalent of all birth defects and leading cause of death in the first year of life. The purpose of this article is to review the epidemiology of the impact of cigarette smoking on CHD risk as well as to discuss the potential biological mechanisms of smoking-mediated abnormal cardiac development. Alt Read More

This article reviews the current techniques employed to assess endothelial dysfunction in different categories of smokers. Simple but effective methods to assess regional and local properties of large arteries for epidemiologic studies are firstly discussed. After, more complex but accurate image-based methods are described. In particular, the role of high resolution magnetic resonance to quantify, in a single examination, v Read More

Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death worldwide, and a considerable proportion of smoking-related fatalities are attributable to coronary artery disease (CAD). The detrimental effects of smoking span all stages in the development of CAD ranging from the early functional alterations in the endothelium and the microcirculation to the late clinicopathological manifestations of atherosclerotic plaques. Smokin Read More