Have a healthy Spring Festival
Smokers may die suddenly after the first cardiovascular and cerebrovascular event, a warning comes from a study at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. The study reminds us that the threat of smoking to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health cannot be ignored.
In this large-scale follow-up study, researchers included more than 100,000 follow-up people in 2025 and found that smokers had a significantly increased risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease death compared with non-smokers. In particular, the risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease increased by 79% in middle-aged men and 82% in middle-aged women.
Moreover, the risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events in smokers continues to increase with the increase of smoking years. Young smoking men have the highest long-term risk of myocardial infarction, and young smoking women have the highest risk of stroke and heart failure. This means that smokers start smoking at a young age, and their risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease begins to increase.
It is important to note that smokers will have their first cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events earlier than nonsmokers. Compared with non-smokers, the time to first cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events in young and middle-aged men and women who smoked was 51 year and 38 years.
Overall, the additional cardiovascular risk associated with smoking persists into the 80s, and smokers live significantly shorter than non-smokers. This is not only a health problem, but also a social problem. We need more publicity and education to make people aware of the dangers of smoking to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health, and the importance of quitting smoking.