Cardiovascular Risk Among Patients Who Smoke: Risk Profiles and Differences by Sex

Smoking is particularly harmful to the cardiovascular system, and smoking-cessation is a key target for cardiovascular prevention. From a large nationwide database on subjects who visited smoking-cessation services, this study assessed the profile and abstinence rate comparing female with male smokers at high cardiovascular risk.

This was an observational study from the French smoking-cessation services cohort (French national cohort Consultations de Dépendance Tabagique) between 2001 and 2018. Inclusion criteria were being aged ≥18 years and having ≥1 cardiovascular risk factor. Abstinence was self-reported (stopping cigarettes or other tobacco products use ≥28 consecutive days) and confirmed by exhaled carbon monoxide <10 parts per million. Analysis was conducted in 2021.

Among 36,864 people who smoke, 15,407 (42%) were women. Women were 3 years younger (48 vs 51 years, p<0.001) and more educated (≥high school diploma: 54% vs 45%, p<0.001) than men. The burden of cardiovascular risk factors was slightly lower in women than in men and, for hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, were half as frequent in women as they were in men (16% vs 32%, p<0.001). However, women suffered more often from obesity, respiratory diseases, and anxiety‒depression symptoms (53% vs 39%, p<0.001). Finally, although women were less nicotine dependent, their abstinence rate was slightly lower (52.6% vs 55.2%, p<0.001).

Women who smoked had a high burden of risk factors, especially obesity and elevated rates of lung diseases, and a lower abstinence rate, with more common anxiety‒depression symptoms. Men who smoked had a higher prevalence of cardiovascular disease, higher nicotine dependence, and coaddictions. These findings highlight the need to strengthen cardiovascular prevention strategies through comprehensive sex-tailored smoking-cessation interventions.