Jaideep Misra, Kusuma Venkatesh
BACKGROUND
Cigarette smoking is one of the major lifestyle factors influencing the health of human beings. Smoke from cigarettes can affect nearly every organ in the body by promoting cell damage and causing inflammation. The effects of smoking are many namely cancers, lung diseases, cardiovascular diseases and circulatory problems. The primary objective of this ICMR short term studentship research was to compare blood platelet count of smokers and non-smokers.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Twenty five healthy smokers and non-smokers each in the age group of 20 to 40 years among the hospital employees and college students were studied. Subjects suffering from chronic diseases, dengue, typhoid or those taking regular medicines for the last 2 years were excluded. The platelet count was performed by obtaining 2 millilitres of anticoagulated blood samples from the subjects after taking their informed consent and with all the aseptic precautions. The platelet count was done using an automated analyser known as Sysmax Electronic Counter.
RESULTS
The platelet count was found to be higher in smokers as compared to that of non-smokers even though there was no major significant difference. The mean platelet count of smokers was higher than that calculated for nonsmokers. The mean platelet count for smokers was 221.68 thousands/L and for nonsmokers 216.8 thousand/L. Data of 50 subjects have been tabulated and used in calculating the mean platelet count.
CONCLUSION
After the short-term students’ study research, it was found that mean platelet count of smokers was higher than that of nonsmokers, even though the difference was not very much. It was concluded that apart from smoking having ill effect on health is associated with cardiac diseases, it also has social stigma attached with adolescents of today.
