In a smoking teenager, being exposed to tobacco in utero would increase the damage of the cigarette to the pulmonary level. It is in any case the conclusion of a work carried out by an Inserm team on rodents.
A mouse exposed to tobacco soon after puberty has respiratory function impairments all the more important because she has already been a victim of cigarette smoking in utero. An Inserm * team has indeed tried to clarify whether the decline in respiratory function was faster when active smoking in adolescence concerned animals with pulmonary capacities already altered during pregnancy.
After prenatal exposure to tobacco, the lungs of young mice were both less able to distend themselves from inspiration and to recover from exhalation. Moreover, in the elderly mice 21 49 days (which corresponds to adolescence), tobacco caused alterations in respiratory function. The latter, however, were much less important in unexposed rodents during gestation.
A RESPIRATORY CAPITAL TO PRESERVE
For the author of this work Christophe Delacourt, who are " the respiratory capital is defined at birth. Therefore, we follow a corridor of evolution of our lung capacities, which grows until the end of adolescence and decreases thereafter throughout the life. Thus any prenatal or childhood alteration will be decisive for the respiratory outcome.
According to the researchers, however, it remains to determine the precise mechanisms explaining this phenomenon. Pending the results of these new investigations, " this study has an immediate translation in terms of public health. It demonstrates the importance of redoubling prevention messages among young populations, especially those known to have suffered an early loss of their respiratory capital. To know the children born of smoky mothers but also the very premature ". But also to prevent smoking during pregnancy.
*Inserm Unit 995 Inserm / Paris Est University Créteil Val de Marne, Mondor Institute for Biomedical Research, Créteil
Source : Destination Health / Depeche
