Researchers have found another reason not to smoke, if anyone needed another reason. Smoking significantly increases the risk for women of developing a rupture of the body’s largest artery. The rupture can be fatal or require surgery to repair if found before rupturing.

Smoking increases the risk 8 times according to the study.

About 15,000 people in the U.S. die each year from this type of rupture. The aorta is the main artery carrying blood from the heart is the aorta and the weakening of that can lead to a rupture can take years to develop, often without symptoms.

The new study, published in the British Medical Journal and was led by Dr. Frank Lederle, an internist at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Minneapolis and a professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota.

Source
British Medical Journal