Non-Hispanic white women more smoking risk

ALBUQUERQUE, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- Non-Hispanic white women smokers are at greater risk of developing airflow obstruction than Hispanic women smokers, U.S. researchers said.

Dr. Yohannes Tesfaigzi of the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute in Albuquerque, N.M., said smoking-related respiratory diseases are a major cause of death among all women, but the study findings are considered surprising because many diseases more adversely affect ethnic minorities.

Tesfaigzi and colleagues at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, discovered that Hispanic ethnicity was associated with halving of the likelihood of airflow obstruction in female smokers.

Of the 1,433 women who participated, 248, or 17.3 percent, were Hispanic; 830, or 57.9 percent, were current smokers; 517, or 36.1 percent, smoked 40 pack-years and 422, or 29.4 percent, were obese.

"The findings of this study were very surprising; however, no Hispanic woman who smokes should believe they are immune to the many diseases that smoking causes," Tesfaigzi said in a statement.

While Hispanic participants were significantly more likely to be younger, overweight or obese, and had a higher prevalence of current smoking, they had a lower intensity of smoking -- fewer pack-years -- than non-Hispanic white women. However, there was no significant difference in duration or age of onset of smoking, or time since smoking cessation for ex-smokers between the two groups, the study said.