They kept the blood-alcohol concentration within the blood stream of the mice at a level equivalent to a 150-pound adult drinking two alcoholic drinks each hour. The researchers also kept the same mice in an enclosure that was similar to a chain-smoking adult inside a closed (windows up) automobile.

The researchers concluded that the group of mice drinking alcohol and inhaling tobacco smoke was 4.7 times more likely to develop lesions on arteries than the group of mice that breathed filtered air and ate a solid diet of non-alcoholic foods.

The combination of alcohol and tobacco also was worse than taking tobacco without alcohol and drinking alcohol without tobacco. The researchers found that the group of mice exposed only to the tobacco smoke had an increase of artery lesions of 2.3 times over mice breathing fresh (filtered) air. Likewise, the group of mice drinking the alcohol-based liquid diet had a 3.5 times increase in artery lesions over mice feed the normal (solid) diet without alcohol.

The lead researcher, Scott Ballinger, who is an associate professor in the UAB Department of Pathology, stated that the medical community is well aware that artery lesions is a clear indication within human who are regular and heavy tobacco smokers and a direct sign of advanced cardiovascular disease within these smokers.

Co-author in the paper is Shannon Bailey, an associate professor in the UAB Department of Environmental Health Sciences. Also contributing to the study are members of the Institute of Toxicology and Environmental Health at the University of California, Davis.

Their paper, based on the experiments, is published in the journal Free Radical Biology & Medicine.

This article was based on the University of Alabama article “Cigarette Smoke and Alcohol Damage Hearts Worse As Combo”.

In the United States, the federal government, through the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965 and other such Acts, has been requiring warning labels on the side panels of cigarette packaging.

For over forty years, such labels as “Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health” and “SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, and May Complicate Pregnancy” have been placed on cigarette packages sold in the United States. The Australian and Canadian governments, for instance, also require similar labeling of its cigarettes.


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