Arellano, Vanessa G.

BSN4-4 Smoking accounts for most heart attacks before age 40 Updated, May 02, 2011 By Richard N. Fogoros, M.D.

Investigators from Finland have found that individuals under age 40 who smoke tobacco products have a five times higher chance of having a myocardial infarction (heart attack) than nonsmokers, and that smoking is the single most important cause of heart attacks in younger patients. Their results were published in the September issue of Tobacco Control. They reached this conclusion by examining data from the World Health Organization Multinational Monitoring of Trends and Determinants in Cardiovascular Disease (MONICA) database. In the MONICA project, information was collected on cardiac risk factors and subsequent cardiac "events" in populations of individuals from 21 countries in the 1980s and 1990s. It turned out that, of younger patients (less than 40 years of age) who had heart attacks, 80% were smokers. Furthermore, smoking was the only risk factor identified in over half of these young heart attack victims. Since not all smokers younger than 40 have heart attacks, it is likely that many of these young heart attack patients have some unidentified risk factor -perhaps a clotting disorder or unidentified hypercholesterolemia - that predisposes them to premature cardiovascular disease. Under this theory, smoking would greatly accelerate effects of such risk factors, such that cardiac disease occurs more "prematurely" than it otherwise would. This is nothing new, of course. Smoking greatly accelerates atherosclerosis ("hardening of the arteries") in anybody, of any age. Thus, even smokers who survive past 40 without overt cardiac disease are very likely to develop heart attacks or strokes years - or even decades - earlier than they otherwise might. Most people associate cigarette smoking with breathing problems and lung cancer. But did you know that smoking is also a major cause of heart disease for men and women? Almost 20% of all deaths from heart disease in the U.S. are directly related to cigarette smoking. That's because smoking is a major cause of coronary artery disease.

A person's risk of heart disease and heart attack greatly increases with the number of cigarettes he or she smokes. People who smoke have a two to four times higher chance of having heart disease. And smokers continue to increase their risk of heart attack the longer they smoke. Women who smoke and also take birth controlpills increase several times their risk of heart attack, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease. SUMMARY: My journal talks about how cigarette smoking as a cause of heart disease and do not only affects smokers because when you smoke, the people around you are also at risk for developing health problems, especially children. Environmental tobacco smoke (also called passive smoke or secondhand smoke) affects people who are frequently around smokers. Secondhand smoke can cause chronic respiratory conditions, cancer, and heart disease. It is estimated that nearly 70,000 nonsmokers die from heart disease each year as a result of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke.

REACTION: As nurses, we can help our patients stop smoking. How? Talk to patients about their smoking, provide some simple but effective quit smoking advice, and ask other health professionals to do the same. This concise guide will help us do this successfully. Smoking is a proven health hazard, and there are clear benefits to quitting. There is no safe cigarette and no safe level of smoking. We have a responsibility, as health professionals, to talk to all their patients who smoke about quitting. This is true whether you work in a hospital, health department, worksite, school, physician's office, patient's home, or any other setting.

THEORY: Betty Neuman defines nursing as action which assist individuals, families and groups to maintain a maximum level of wellness, and the primary aim is stability of the patient/client system, through nursing interventions to reduce stressors. We as nurses should assist individuals to maintain health by proposing Information campaigns about smoking cessations by gradual and step by step process. We are not just preventing diseases but we are promoting health. The best location of health campaigns is in barangays because a community consists of families, a family can help one another in smoking cessation so they can be more motivated for their wellness.