Smoking In Teenagers Carries A Risk Of Obesity And Multiple Sclerosis In Adulthood

A study conducted in Finland shows that teenage girls who smoke 10 or more cigarettes a day are more at risk of gaining weight, especially in the abdomen. Their waists were about 3.5 cm wider than those of girls who did not smoke when they were younger.

In men, however, smoking certainly did not predict weight problems, the researchers said.

Researchers are aware that there is a link between weight and smoking in women, says lead author Suoma Saarni of the Public Health Service in Helsinki. However, it is not clear why they have it and men do not, she added.

The Finnish study tracked twins born between 1975 and 1979 using questionnaires sent by mail shortly after their 16th birthday. Subsequently, data were collected for all 2278 women and 2018 men when the twins were between 20 and 30 years old.

The researchers studied the twins to take into account family or genetic factors that influence smoking and weight gain, Saarney said. Half of the participants had never smoked, and 12% were ex-smokers during puberty. About 15.5% of men and 9.4% of women smoked at least 10 cigarettes a day.

By the time participants turned 20, weight problems were becoming apparent. By age 24, approximately 24% of men and 11% of women were overweight. There was no pattern in men, but young women who smoked more than 10 cigarettes a day had a 2.32-fold higher risk of being overweight than non-smokers.

This difference could be biological or cultural, the authors believe. Biologically, tobacco and sex hormones can interact differently in girls and boys in ways that affect appetite and body fat distribution.

Sherry Pagoto, an assistant professor of clinical psychology at the University of Massachusetts in the United States, suggests that women smoke more often to control their weight, especially during puberty. Experts remind that when people give up cigarettes, one of the reasons for gaining weight is that they increase food consumption. They are beginning to replace cigarettes with sweets.

According to another study published on the pages of Medical News Today, young people who start smoking before the age of 17 are reported to be at increased risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS). A total of 30,000 people were included in the study, 87 of whom had MS.

MS patients were divided into three groups: non-smokers, early smokers (before the age of 17) and late smokers (people who lit their first cigarette at the age of 17). In the comparative analysis, uniform in age, sex and race, 435 people without MS participated. It was found that early smokers were 2.7 times more likely to develop MS than non-smokers. No such dependence was found in later smokers. According to the results of the study, 32% of patients with MS smoked early, compared to 19% of people without MS.

Dr. Joseph Flickenstein of Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore explains that environmental factors play an extremely important role in the development of multiple sclerosis. According to him, smoking as a trigger for the disease should be avoided.