The effect of smoking on the stressed template bleeding time

Tobacco cigarette smoking is known to affect platelet function. The purpose of this study was to determine whether cigarette smoking acutely shortens the bleeding time of healthy men. The mean initial stressed template bleeding time of 12 nonsmokers (9.0 minutes) was not significantly different from that of nine habitual smokers (9.2 minutes) who were asked to abstain from smoking for 12 hours before determination of the bleeding time. The mean bleeding time was the same immediately before and after the 21 men smoked two filtered tobacco cigarettes in 20 minutes. Separate analyses showed that the mean bleeding time of neither the nonsmokers nor the habitual smokers changed significantly after experimental smoking. We conclude that smoking two cigarettes has no effect on the stressed template bleeding time of healthy men.