Affiliations: Istituto di Patologia Speciale Medica e Metodologia Clinica, University of Siena, Nuovo Policlinico, Viale Bracci, I - 53100 Siena, Italia
Note: [] Accepted by: Editor G.D.O. Lowe
Abstract: We have studied the acute effects of smoking two cigarettes with a high nicotine content in young healthy smokers. The haemorheological profile (blood and plasma viscosity and blood filterability), the peripheral haemodynamics (blood flow in the limbs, at rest and during reactive postischemic hyperemia using a strain gauge plethysmograph) and the metabolic pattern (acid-base balance, oxymetric values and COHb) have been evaluated before and after smoking. Results have shown that cigarette smoking provokes besides an evident increase of COHb, a decrease of blood filterability and an impairment of the last phase of the reactive hyperemia with the lenghtening of the total time. These data suggest that a possible impairment of the blood flow at microcirculatory level can occur in these subjects after cigarette smoking.
