Daily HealthBeat Tip - December 31, 2007

Smoking, drinking and hearts

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Smoking and drinking can be bad for blood vessels. A researcher found that by feeding mice alcohol and giving them smoky air, and seeing if their blood vessels developed lesions that could lead to heart attacks.

Scott Ballinger of the University of Alabama at Birmingham found smoking and drinking caused problems separately. But:

``When you combined the two, that was the greatest amount of atherosclerotic lesion formation that was seen, compared to the animals that weren’t exposed to any of these factors.’’ (8 seconds)

Ballinger’s lesson: 

``If I were a mouse, I would stay out of a smoky bar unless there were a lot of cheese in it.’’ (4 seconds)

He says people would be wise to do similarly.

The study in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: May, 26 2008