Hemodynamic effects of smoking cigarettes of high and low nicotine content.

We studied the hemodynamic effects of smoking cigarettes with high and low contents of nicotine in young smokers free of coronary arterial disease. The smoking of one cigarette with a high content of nicotine produced a peak rise in cardiac output of 32 percent above baseline values, and the effect persisted for one hour. Smoking a cigarette with a low content of nicotine produced a peak rise of 13 percent above baseline values, with a duration of five minutes. The rise in cardiac output was almost entirely attributable to tachycardia, since stroke volume remained relatively constant. The smoking of a cigarette with high nicotine content also caused greater and more sustained elevation in systemic blood pressure than smoking a cigarette with low nicotine content. Thus, there was a responsiveness to the dose of nicotine in cigarettes smoked by young smokers free of coronary arterial disease.