Age and Cigarette Smoking are Independently Associated with the Cutaneous Vascular Response to Local Warming

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To investigate the relative impacts of age and cigarette smoking on cutaneous blood flow and flow motion.

Experimental Design: Skin blood flux was measured before and during the hyperaemic response to thermal warming of the skin to 43°C using laser Doppler fluximetry (LDF) in 28 habitual smokers (5.4 [11.4] (median [IQR]) pack years; pack years=packs/day×duration of smoking habit), aged between 18 and 63 years and their age, sex and body mass index. Flow motion was assessed using Fourier analysis of the LDF signal.

Results: Mean and total hyperaemic (area under the flux curve, AUC₁₀) response during warming were reduced in smokers compared with their non-smoking controls (P<0.05). Attenuation of the response to warming in smokers was associated with a reduction in relative spectral power around 0.01 Hz, reflecting a reduced endothelial/metabolic activity (P<0.04). In regression modelling with AUC₁₀ as the outcome, and smoking (yes/no), age, sex and BMI, as explanatory variables, age (P<0.0001) and smoking (P=0.018) were independently associated with the hyperaemic response and together accounted for 31% of the variance in AUC₁₀.

Conclusions: Age and smoking are associated with approximately one-third of the variance in the endothelium-associated microvascular vasomotor activity in habitual smokers.

Keywords::

• chronic cigarette smoking
• age
• skin blood flow motion
• warming
• laser Doppler flowmetry

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank Professor Martin Church for his input into the original study design.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no financial conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this paper.