Among the 45 million smokers in the United States, about 19
percent don’t smoke every day. These occasional smokers — people
who smoke only on the weekends or just a few times a week in
social situations — often believe they are avoiding the health
worries typically associated with smoking. But new research
shows that even occasional cigarette smoking can impair artery
function, a sign of looming heart disease. In a small study,
researchers at the University of Georgia recruited 18 healthy
college students, half of whom were nonsmokers. The other half
were occasional smokers, who puffed less than a pack a week and
had not smoked for at least two days before undergoing testing.
The study, published online in the journal Ultrasound in
Medicine and Biology, used ultrasound scans to measure how the
students’ arteries responded to changes in blood flow. The
researchers used a blood pressure cuff to reduce blood flow to
the forearm for up to 10 minutes. Then they rapidly deflated the
cuff and measured how the main