Risk factors for cardiovascular diseases and smoking pattern: Cross-sectional analysis of the initial phase data of the Ravansar cohort study

Smoking is an important individual risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD), which in combination with other risk factors may also increase the risk of cardiovascular conditions. In this study, the effect of CVD risk factors has been investigated on different levels of smoking.

This cross-sectional analysis was performed using the baseline data of Ravansar Non-Communicable Disease (RaNCD) cohort study. The study included 10063 persons in the age range of 35–65 years.  The smoking status was categorized as current, former, and never smokers. It was also classified into three levels of light, medium and strong based on the amount of tobacco consumption. Data were analyzed using logistic regression.

The mean age of participants was 48.10± 8.25 years and nearly 4773 (47.43%) of them were male. The odds ratio of CVDs were 3.14 (95% CI = 1.28-2.67), 1.47 (95% CI = 0.85-2.55), and 1.25 (95% CI = 0.56-5.77) times higher in smoker with hypertension, diabetes and hyperlipidemia, respectively. Hypertension (OR = 2.17, 95% CI = 1.18-1.00) and hyperlipidemia (OR = 2.13, 95% CI = 1.17-1.90) increased the CVD risk in former smokers. High physical activity in never smokers (OR = 0.73) and former smoker (OR = 0.53) was a significant CVD protective factor.

Smoking either individually or in combination with other risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, obesity, poor physical activity, and old age increases the risk of developing CVD.