HHS HealthBeat (March 10, 2010)

Brain lesions and smoking

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Intracranial aneurysms – a bulging of the wall of blood vessels that supply the brain – can lead to devastating bleeding surrounding and into the brain. And researchers say people with a couple of common variations in genes have higher risks – which go up even more if people smoke.

At the University of Cincinnati, Joseph Broderick found people who smoked the equivalent of a pack a day for 20 years had five times the risk of an intracranial aneurysm than nonsmokers. People with the gene variants had a higher risk as well. And for people with the variants who also smoked: 

[Joseph Broderick speaks] "The combination of the smoking and having that risk gene causes more risk in the population."

The study presented at a meeting of the American Stroke Association was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: May 7, 2011