Cigarette-Smoking And Heart Disease

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30055, 13 February 1963, Page 15

Cigarette-Smoking And Heart Disease

(N.Z. Press Association) DUNEDIN, Feb; 12. Men who smoke cigarettes risked a heart attack which was more serious than the risk of lung cancer, Professor J. Loewenthal, professor of surgery at Sydney University, said today. “The risk is much more important than the risk of lung cancer, because coronary disease has higher morbidity and mortality,” he said. Professor Loewenthal was a guest speaker at the conference of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association.

The Sydney University department of surgery had examined more than 500 patients with a “classical” obstruction in a leg artery, he said. “Only recently did we find one who is not a cigarette smoker." Asked if he smoked, Professor Loewenthal smiled and said: “I gave it up.” Coronary disease could cause the hardening of arteries in heart, organs, brain or limbs. As a result blood clots could form. Professor J. D. Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of Otago, told the conference that recent research had reinforced previous suspicions about the role at cigarette smoking and disturbed fat metabolism. “There now seems little doubt that males—at least those aged 30 yean and over

—who smoke cigarettes heavily (more than 20 cigarettes daily) have over a period of about 10 years, three times the risk of suffering a coronary attack or dying from any cause, compared with men who don't smoke or with those who smoke pipes or cigars. “A hopeful observation is that the effect does not seem to be cumulative. There is a reversal to standard risk soon after cigarette smoking is discontinued. "This does not mean smoking causes coronary disease, but it may well be that it

precipitates manifestations of the disorder in those already susceptible to it.

“Recent investigations of the relationship of diet to coronary diesase suggest that man may need to pay as much attention to the way he

eats as to the amount and nature of the fat,” said Professor Hunter.

“If animal experiments are confirmed, *nibbUng* throughout toe day could prove to be preferable to modern meal eating. "And a brisk walk after that roast dinner may be more advantageous than a 20minute nap, and the tatty substance cholesterol mav prove to be less significant than another type of tat, triglyceride, in the incidence of coronary disease." At least 30 minutes* brisk walking daily, reduced dietary tat intake and curtailment of cigarette smoking were among the principal measures he suggested foe treating paUenta who had recovered from a coronary at* tack—or who wish to diminish the risk at having one.