Cigarettes, Passive Smoking Linked to Infertility, Early Menopause, Shows Study

Cigarette smoking is dangerous to one's health. However, despite this knowledge, many still continue to puff smoke. A new study revealed another health condition that should keep women from the habit.

According to NBC News, tobacco might cause more than cancer, heart disease and lung damage. It can also injure a woman's fertility.

Women who smoked especially those who started at the youngest ages went through menopause almost two years earlier than their women counterpart who never smoked, said Danielle Smith of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo and colleagues.

Aside from this, passive smokers are also affected. Women who recalled breathing the most secondhand smoke went through menopause at an average of 13 months earlier than women who didn't think they'd ever breathed any.

The team studied over 93,000 women who took part in the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study between 1993 to 1998. The sample filled out very detailed questionnaires on lifestyle habits, health problems and medical diagnoses.

The study found out that women who smoked 100 cigarettes or more in their lives had a 14 percent higher risk of infertility and 26 percent higher odds of going through menopause before turning 50.

The new study only confirmed previous studies associating smoking with early menopausal. In a separate report from NBC News, another study revealed that smoking could speed up menopause for some women. The study found out that smoking white women with a certain genetic mutation might enter menopause nine years earlier.

According to Andrew Hyland, study author and chair of health behavior at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., early menopause has been linked with a higher risk of death from all causes, Philly.com has learned.

Back to the new study, women who grew up with a smoker in the household for 10 years or more and those who lived with a spouse who smoked for 20 years or more, and those who worked with smokers for 10 years or more were 18 percent more likely to suffer infertility problems than those who had never been passive smokers.

Overall, about 15 percent of the women admitted that they had struggled to conceive for a year at a stretch or more and 45 percent said they went through menopause before 50.

"This study provides additional motivation and incentive for women of all ages to avoid smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke, as well as to quit smoking," said Patricia Forlan director of the Center for Tobacco Control at North Shore-LIJ Health System in Great Neck, N.Y.

Smoking or passive smoking is associated with premature birth, low birth weight, infant death and certain birth defects she added.

The study was published online in the journal Tobacco Control.