From smoking parents, smoking children
The more time a child is exposed to tobacco smoking in a father smoker, more likely to be interested in cigarettes during his youth and become a heavy smoker, according to a team of researchers from the Lombardi Integral Oncology Center.
His work, published in the digital edition of 'Pediatrics', is one of the first to adopt an intergenerational prospective vision on the impact of a parent's behavior on the risk of smoking from their parents. teenage children. The results suggest that it is essential that parents quit smoking early in their children's lives. prevent smoking in the next generation, since the habit of smoking is transmitted from generation to generation, that is, of smoking parents, smoking children.
Dependence on nicotine
"It is difficult to dissuade children from smoking if one or both parents are very dependent on cigarettes," the study's researchers point out. "It is also important that parents who smoke know that their children can imitate the behavior, especially if one of the parents is very dependent on nicotine," they warn.
The nicotine dependence It is characterized by strong cravings for smoking, with the need to ingest more nicotine to feel the same effects and, on the contrary, be bad if you stop smoking. According to experts, pediatric clinics should be alert about the smoking habits of patients and their parents.
"The findings that exposure to parental nicotine dependence is a factor that influences the intergenerational transmission of habit of smoking they are surprising and worrisome, but they indicate a direction to follow to reduce that risk ".
The study involved more than 400 parents and their adolescent children from 12 to 17 years old. Thus it was found that the more years a child was exposed to smoking by parents dependent on nicotine, the greater the risk that adolescents start smoking or try the cigarettes.
Isabel Martínez
