Smoking – An Underlying Cause Of Leg Pain: Study
In a recent study, researchers found that smoking can lead to peripheral artery diseases in which fat starts to deposit in the arteries along with a calcium wall blocking it further. This condition leads to narrowed blood vessels and hence creates a shortage of oxygen in the limbs resulting in severe pain.
The researchers also found that these harmful effects of smoking might have the potential to become visible even after 30 years of non-smoking. The study conducted at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US also highlighted that there’s a stronger correlation between smoking and peripheral artery disease than of smoking and coronary heart disease and stroke.
Further, the research published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology analysed comparative studies of non-smokers with individuals who smoked more than 40-packs in a year. The study highlighted that smokers had four times risk for peripheral artery disease along with an increased risk of coronary heart disease and stroke.
Concerning the risk of heart disease among current smokers, study brought out that smoking more than a pack per day increases the risk of getting peripheral artery disease to 5.4 times, of coronary heart disease to 2.4 times, and of a stroke to 1.9 times as compared to individuals who haven’t smoked in their lifetime.
Peripheral artery disease is characterised with an atherosclerotic build-up cholesterol-laden deposits in the blood carrying capillaries in the limbs. The cholesterol build-up reduces the blood flow in the arteries which causes severe leg pain, weakened healing mechanism, and other problems.
However, for past smokers, the research also provides some sigh of relief as it stressed that the risk of peripheral artery disease reduces to normal after 30 years of non-smoking. Also, it highlighted that to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, a smoker needs a time-span of 20 years of non-smoking to return to baseline.
