Acute Cardiovascular Effects of Cigarette Smoking

Twenty male persons habituated to smoking (at least 5 cigarettes/day) will be recruited after an informed consent. Healthy persons with no systemic illness will be included. After a history and a routine examination, subjects will be asked to abstain from smoking for 3 hours and then their pulse, BP, ECG and echo recorded. The measurements will be repeated after 15 min. and the average of these two taken as baseline readings. Then, they will be asked to smoke a cigarette and the measurements taken again. Special focus will be on Doppler measures of left ventricular (LV) function. The measurements are repeated immediately and at 5,10 and 15 min. The data will be analyzed for any cardiovascular effects of smoking a cigarette. Chi square test for proportions and t-test for means will be done. A p value < 0.05 will be taken as significant.