Parents' Smoking Raise Future Heart Risks for Kids

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Sept. 23, 2019 (HealthDay News) -- When parents smoke, their kids may face a
higher risk of a common heart rhythm problem decades later, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that adults who grew up with smokers were more likely to
develop atrial fibrillation, versus those with nonsmoking parents.

Atrial fibrillation (or "a-fib") is a heart arrhythmia in which the atria -- the heart's upper
chambers -- periodically quiver instead of contracting normally. A-fib episodes are not
immediately life-threatening, but over time they can lead to a stroke or heart failure.

"It's pretty well-established now that smoking is a risk factor for atrial fibrillation," said Dr.
Gregory Marcus, the senior researcher on the new study.

Much less is known about whether secondhand smoke can raise the risk. But in an earlier
study, Marcus and his team found hints that childhood exposure to secondhand smoke
might contribute to a-fib. The new study bolsters that evidence. It was published online
Sept. 23 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
The researchers used data from two large health studies that followed families over two
generations. That, Marcus said, gave them reliable information about parents' smoking
habits -- and their adult children's exposure to secondhand smoke when they were
growing up. Of more than 2,800 adult offspring, about 14% were diagnosed with a-fib
over 40 years. That risk, the study found, rose in tandem with their childhood exposure to
parents' smoking.
For every pack of cigarettes parents smoked per day, their children's risk of eventually
developing a-fib rose by 18%, the investigators found. Of course, parents who smoke may
also have kids who smoke, Marcus noted. And that was often true in this study. Those
smokers, in turn, had a 32% higher risk of a-fib than nonsmokers. Still, that appeared to
explain only part of the link between parents' smoking and their kids' a-fib risk.
"That suggests there may be something about secondhand smoke exposure, itself, that
contributes to atrial fibrillation," said Marcus, a professor of cardiology at the University
of California, San Francisco.
That is "biologically plausible," he added. Smoking is thought to contribute to a-fib by
"remodeling" the atria (altering the chambers' structure and function). Something similar
might occur when the developing heart is regularly exposed to secondhand smoke, the
researchers suggested.
Plus, Marcus explained, the pulmonary vein, which shuttles blood from the lungs to the
heart, is known to be important in a-fib. So it's not "far-fetched," he said, that toxic
substances inhaled into the lungs -- even secondhand -- could have some effect on the
atria.
However, this study does not prove any of that, Marcus stressed.
"It's still possible that much of this association, or even all of it, is explained by higher
rates of smoking among [adult children] themselves," he said.
But even if that is the case, Marcus noted, parents' behavior would still be affecting their
children's future health by encouraging them to smoke.
That point was echoed by Dr. David Hill, a volunteer medical spokesperson with the
American Lung Association.
"This could be a direct effect of secondhand smoke or an indirect effect of parents'
smoking," said Hill, who is also an assistant clinical professor at Yale University School of
Medicine.
Either way, he said, "this is one more reason not to smoke around your kids."
It's already known that in the short term, parents' smoking can contribute to asthma and
more frequent respiratory infections in their kids, Hill noted.
One broad question for future studies, he said, is whether secondhand exposure to
parents' e-cigarette use could have ill health effects for kids. E-cigarettes do not produce
tobacco smoke. But they do emit a vapor containing nicotine, fine particles, heavy metals
and chemicals linked to cancer and lung disease, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.

Source:
https://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/atrial-fibrillation/news/20190923/parents-s
moking-raise-future-heart-risks-for-kids#1