Smoking cessation and associated risk of metabolic syndrome in women

This study was a cross-sectional analysis of 7462 randomly selected Polish women, aged 20-74 years, who had completed the WOBASZ, a Polish National Multicenter Health Survey. Components of metabolic syndrome, including waist circumference, fasting plasma glucose, triglycerides, blood pressure and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol were measured in addition to BMI. The authors assessed the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in pre-and postmenopausal women with respect to smoking status (current smoking, past smoking or never smoked). They determined that the prevalence of metabolic syndrome was 3.3-fold higher in postmenopausal women compared with premenopausal women and that past smoking was associated with higher odds of metabolic syndrome, regardless of menopausal status. Previous studies that have examined the risk of developing metabolic syndrome after smoking cessation did not assess menopausal status in women, and also used reported rather than measured anthropomorphic data. This study provides an additional perspective on the metabolic changes that may occur in women after smoking cessation.