Smoking: more than 10 cardiovascular deaths in 2000 was related to cigarette

More cardiovascular deaths 10 occurred in 2000 in the world is due to smoking, suggests a study by U.S. and Australian researchers and published in the journal "Circulation".

Smoking is the leading cause of cardiovascular mortality, but little information exists on the level of contribution of smoking to cardiovascular mortality in the world and in specific areas, highlight Majid Ezzati of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston (Massachusetts ) and colleagues.

For their study, they used data from the Cancer Prevention Study II (CPS II) study by the American Cancer Society and those of the database on mortality from diseases of the World Health Organization (WHO ) to estimate deaths coronary disease, cerebrovascular disease and other cardiovascular diseases attributable to smoking in 14 epidemiological regions defined by WHO.

For 2000, they estimated at 1,620,000 the number of cardiovascular deaths attributable to smoking, 11% of cardiovascular deaths in the world.

There were 1,170,000 males and 450,000 females. Of these deaths, 960,000 related industrialized countries.

For "Europe-A", covering 25 European countries, including France, plus Israel, which have a very low infant mortality and very low adult mortality according to WHO criteria, cardiovascular mortality attributable to smoking was 13%, totaling 201,000 deaths, 135,000 men, 23% of cardiovascular deaths in men are caused by smoking and against 7% in women.

The region with the highest proportion of cardiovascular deaths attributable to tobacco was that containing the United States, Canada and Cuba, with a proportion of 22%, similar in men and women (23% and 21%, respectively) .

The lowest proportion (2%) was still found in America, but for the sub-region D, comprising Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua and Peru, classified by WHO among countries with infant mortality and high adult.

Since smoking is on the rise in developing countries, we can expect an increase in cardiovascular mortality in these countries, the authors note.

On the other hand, "as the benefits of stopping smoking appear faster for cardiovascular disease than for other diseases, and prevention strategies to reduce smoking will have an immediate and significant benefits in reducing mortality cardiovascular, "they say.