Smokers less likely to survive a heart attack, study finds

Non-smokers have a higher chance of surviving a heart attack than smokers, a new study has found.

According to researchers at Jordan University of Science and Technology in Irbid, levels of Alpha-1 Anti Trypsin (A1AT) – a protein in the liver that protects the body’s tissues – were “significantly less” in smokers than in non-smokers.

However, no difference was detected in hypertensive (people with high blood pressure) and non-hypertensive individuals.

The researchers are set to present their findings to the American Physiological Society’s (APS) annual meeting at Experimental Biology 2022 in Philadelphia.

The researchers believe A1AT could offer protection to cardiac tissue when it is released during a heart attack.

“The aim of this study was to compare the plasma levels of A1AT released in smokers and non-smokers, and between hypertensive and non-hypertensive individuals after an attack,” the study’s co-author, Said Khatib, PhD, said.

Around 5.5 million adults (13.5 per cent) smoked in the UK in the first quarter of 2020, latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show.

A quarter of all deaths (160,000 each year) in Britain are caused by heart and circulatory diseases, according to the British Heart Foundation – an average of around 460 deaths each day or one every three minutes.

In the UK, there are around 7.6 million people living with a heart or circulatory disease (4 million men and 3.6 million women) and there are as many as 100,000 hospital admissions each year due to heart attacks. That’s one every five minutes.

Meanwhile in the US, approximately 1.5 million heart attacks and strokes occur annually, according to the country’s Department of Health and Human Services’ Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention.

The human study was conducted with 29 adult men and 11 adult women through blood samples drawn within one, four, 24, 48 and 96 hours of a heart attack diagnosis. Participants were divided into four groups of smokers and non-smokers, and hypertensive and non-hypertensive.

Researchers believe that maintaining appropriate levels of A1AT in smokers during a heart attack will improve their chances of survival.