Smokers More Unhealthy than Nonsmokers

Tobacco use is still an important public issue, because it remains the number one source of preventable morbidity and premature mortality in the world. That’s why scientists continue to investigate this bad habit.

For example a recent study found that persons with multiple sclerosis who smoked for a little as six months during their lifetime had more destruction of brain tissue and more brain atrophy than those who never smoked. Scientists also showed that "ever-smokers" had more brain lesions and greater loss of brain volume, as well as higher scores on the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS), than persons who had no history of smoking.

The EDSS score is an ordinary number derived from amounts of several functions of the central nervous system. It is based on a scale from 0 to 10, with 10 presenting greatest incapacity. The researchers found that the EDSS average score in nonsmokers is 2.5, compared to 3.0 for ever-smokers. Robert Zivadinov, M.D., Ph.D., UB professor of neurology, director of the Buffalo Neuroimaging Analysis Center (BNAC), said: "Cigarette smoking is one of the most insuperable environmental risk factors linked to the development and worsening of MS (multiple sclerosis)."

"The biological basis of the possible link between smoking and MS has not yet been quite clarified," Zivadinov added.
Scientists showed also that in addition to nicotine, cigarette smoke contains hundreds of potentially toxic components, including tar, carbon monoxide and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. In this research were involved 368 consecutive patients who were seen at the Baird Multiple Sclerosis Center of the Jacobs Neurological Institute (JNI), UB's Department of Neurology, UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

Within the study group, 128 had a history of smoking: 96 were active smokers who had smoked more than 10 cigarettes-per-day in the three months prior to the study start and 32 were former smokers who had smoked cumulatively for at least six months sometime in the past. The remaining 240 participants were lifelong nonsmokers.

Nearly 80 percent in both groups were female, and nearly 75 percent were diagnosed with progressive MS, characterized by steadily increasing incapacities. Results showed that smokers with MS had a greater breakdown of the blood-brain barrier, had nearly 17 percent more brain lesions than nonsmokers with MS, and also had less brain volume. Smoking also was associated with increased physical disability, as measured by the EDSS score. Scientists concluded that a wide range of quantitative brain MRI markers are affected by smoking in MS patients.