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Tobacco Education: Reduced Risk for Peripheral Artery Disease

Blessings Wiyeh Fanka and Susan Chaney

Peripheral arterial (vascular) disease (PAD/PVD) in its association with significant mortality and morbidity rates has become a significant public health concern. One of the most influential risk factors for PAD is tobacco use, which carries a 3-4-fold increase d risk for PAD often presenting as severe disease. The diagnosis of PAD is usually made a decade earlier in smokers than nonsmokers. The amputation rates in patients with PAD who smoke is twice higher than those that have never smoked. Smoking elevates the risk for PAD several folds and approximately 90% of persons with PAD have a history of smoking. Although the precise mechanism by which chronic smoking induces vascular disease is not entirely understood, growing evidence shows that impairment of endothelial morphology and function plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of vascular disease. Oxidants, delivered by cigarette and deposited in pulmonary vessels through the systemic vasculature, activate superoxide producing enzymes within the vascular wall via oxidative stress and might be the cause of endothelial dysfunction and dysregulation of endothelial barrier. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are currently 1.1 billion tobacco smokers’ worldwide ages 15 years and older. Recently, smoking-related death have been said to account for 4.9 million persons per year worldwide. Tobacco use is considered the most important preventable vascular risk factor for PAD in men and women. The association between smoking and PAD is even stronger than that between smoking and coronary disease. The connection between smoking and PAD was identified in 1911 when Erb reported that intermittent claudication was three times more common in smokers and six times more common in heavy smokers in comparison with nonsmokers.