Ram Baboo Jain
Data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for those aged >=20 years fasting for at least 8 hours for the years 1999-2012 were used to evaluate adjusted and unadjusted differences in the levels of lowdensity- lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL), high-densitylipoprotein- cholesterol (HDL), total cholesterol (TC), and triglyceride (TG) among self-reported current smokers and nonsmokers as well as smokers smoking cigarettes, pipes, cigars etc. Adjustments were made for the effects of gender; race/ethnicity; dietary intake of alcohol, caffeine, fatty acids, saturated and total fat; fasting time; body mass index; and frequency and intensity of smoking during the last five days. Adjusted levels of LDL, TC, and TG did not vary among smokers and nonsmokers but contrary to what could be expected, smokers were observed to have high HDL levels than nonsmokers (52.2 vs. 50.1 mg/dL, p=0.02). However, in the unadjusted analysis, smokers were found to have lower levels of HDL (48.2 vs. 52.1 mg/dL, p<0.01) and higher levels of TG (123.2 vs. 113.5 mg/dL, p<0.01) than nonsmokers but the differences for LDL (112.9 vs. 112.5 mg/dL, p=0.68) and TC (193.4 vs. 194.3 mg/dL, p=0.39) remained statistically insignificant. Adjusted levels of HDL, TC, and LDL levels did not differ among exclusive cigarette and cigar users and exclusive tobacco chewers and snuffers. Exclusive cigarette and cigar users had higher adjusted levels of TG than exclusive tobacco snuffers (125.7 and 133.8 vs. 101.5 mg/dL, p<0.01).
