Mothers or fathers who smoke during pregnancy may create lasting vascular damage for their children, researchers here found. At about age 28, individuals whose mothers smoked during pregnancy had a carotid artery intima-media thickness 13.4 µm greater than those whose mothers did not smoke (P=0.001), found Cuno Uiterwaal, M.D., Ph.D., of the University Medical Center Utrecht, and colleagues.
Those whose fathers smoked had a carotid artery intima-media thickness 12.4 µm greater (P=0.002), the researchers reported online in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology: Journal of the American Heart Association.
The increased thickness was greatest in participants’ whose parents both smoked during pregnancy (P=0.001).
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