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What secondhand smoke leads to
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Bad habits are, of course, a purely personal matter. For example, smokers, having read a lot of literature about the dangers of smoking, having watched many films and programs about its destructive consequences for the body, can continue to smoke, without realizing that they are simply ruining their health.
However, how many smokers think about the people around them who inhale toxic fumes, simply passing by or being present in a smoky room? Surely, few... But passive smoking causes irreparable harm to a person.
"Everyone knows about the harm of passive smoking and its impact on the human cardiovascular system. Even minimal doses of nicotine affect the health of cells and cause irreparable harm to a person. However, the mechanism that causes this effect is still unclear," says the author of the study, Dr. Kaya.
"We studied the impact of passive smoking on the body at the level of three parameters: the average volume of platelets, carboxyhemoglobin and lactates (salts of lactic acid). We did this in order to further understand how the mechanism of inhalation of tobacco smoke works and to analyze the process of its harmful effect. We also looked for a connection between these three parameters."
The mean platelet volume is an excellent indicator of platelet activation, which has increased.
Scientists suspect that carbon monoxide (CO) is a major cause of cardiovascular disease.
Carbon monoxide reacts with hemoglobin in red blood cells. Lactate builds up in the blood when oxygen supply to the blood cells is restricted.
Scientists conducted a study involving 55 healthy non-smoking men aged 26 to 30 years.
The volunteers had their blood tested for mean platelet volume, the interaction of carbon monoxide with hemoglobin in red blood cells, and lactate.
The tests were conducted before and after the men were placed in a smoking room, where they spent an hour.
This is what the scientists were able to discover: all the indicators initially taken from the subjects were statistically higher.
The analysis found that staying in a smoky room for about one hour increases platelet activation.
According to experts, this may be the very mechanism by which the risk of thrombosis increases in healthy non-smokers.
It is likely that long-term exposure to passive smoking on a healthy body can have even more detrimental effects.