Cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, and serum lipid profile among medical students in Greece

Abstract

The results document a high prevalence of smoking among physicians-to-be in Greece. Tobacco use was strongly associated with a lipid profile predisposing to increased risk for cardiovascular disease. Health promotion programmes should therefore be instituted not only during the first years of medical studies, but rather at a much earlier stage in life.

Prevalence of and factors influencing smoking among medical and non-medical students in Tbilisi, Georgia

“…(10) Several other authors have reported results that are also in accordance with those of the present study, having reported smoking prevalence rates as high as 47% in medical students and even higher among non-medical students. (11,12) Although attempts at conducting similar studies have focused exclusively on medical students, (12,13) most such studies have shown high rates of smoking. (14) This can be seen as an indicator of lax enforcement of anti-tobacco measures at universities, as well as being an indicator of lax government policies directed toward reducing tobacco consumption in the general population.…”

Pušenje i alkoholizam: učestalost u populaciji studenata

“…Ako uporedimo medicinske fakultete u različitim zemljama, dobićemo čitav dijapazon vrednosti. Na Medicinskom fakultetu Univerziteta u Parizu procenat sadašnjih pušača iznosi 22% [38], dok u Poljskoj iznosi 19% [37], u Zagrebu 29% [39], u Grčkoj 33% za muški i 28% za ženski pol [40], a najniže vrednosti su u Kanadi gde je prevalencija 6% [41]. Povećani trend konzumacije cigareta je primećen među studentima sociologije Univerziteta u Parizu, gde stopa prevalencije iznosi 42% [38].…”

“…Kada je u pitanju broj popušenih cigareta u toku dana, studenti francuskog Univerziteta u Parizu konzumiraju u proseku 10 cigareta dnevno [38], studenti sociologije Univerziteta u Francuskoj 15 [38], dok je u SAD taj broj značajno manji među studentima prve godine koledža koji konzumiraju u proseku 4 cigarete dnevno [42]. Ako uporedimo studente medicinskih fakulteta u različitim zemljama, videćemo da je broj popušenih cigareta u toku dana najveći u Grčkoj, u proseku 13 [40], a u ostalim zemljama značajno manji. Primera radi, u Francuskoj taj broj iznosi 7 [38], a na Medicinskom fakultetu u Kalgariju samo je oko 18% konzumiralo više od 5 cigareta dnevno [41].…”

“…U Zagrebu, među studentima Medicinskog fakulteta, 70% njih je prijavilo konzumaciju 3-4 pića mesečno ili ređe [39]. U Grčkoj, studenti medicine muškog pola konzumiraju u proseku 92ml alkohola nedeljno, dok studentkinje piju u proseku 48ml za isti period [40]. U Orlandu, u istraživanju sprovedenom na populaciji studenata koledža, došlo se do podatka da je prosečan broj pića u toku nedelje u prva tri meseca u toku istraživanja bio 10, a u šestomesečnom periodu 9 [48].…”

Ethnic Difference in Lipid Profiles

“…There are several factors that contribute to the development of dyslipidaemia (2001), including genetic factors (Cohen et al 1994) and acquired factors (Chait and Brunzell 1990;Devroey et al 2004;Ruixing et al 2008) such as overweight and obesity (Denke et al 1993;Denke et al 1994;Brown et al 2000), physical inactivity (Berg et al 1997;Hardman 1999), cigarette smoking (Criqui et al 1980;Cade and Margetts 1989;Umeda et al 1998;Fisher et al 2000;Wu et al 2001;Maeda et al 2003;Mammas et al 2003;Venkatesan et al 2006;Grant and Meigs 2007;Arslan et al 2008;Batic-Mujanovic et al 2008), high fat intake (Hennig et al 2001;Millen et al 2002;Tanasescu et al 2004), very high carbohydrate diets (> 60 percent of total energy) (McNamara and Howell 1992) and certain drugs (Lehtonen 1985;Fogari et al 1988;Roberts 1989;Middeke et al 1990;Stone 1994) (such as beta-blockers, anabolic steroids, progestational agents, et al). Excess alcohol intake is also documented as a risk factor (Umeda et al 1998;Wu et al 2001;Mammas et al 2003) despite that moderate alcohol consumption may have a beneficial effect on improving HDL-C concentrations (De Oliveira et al 2000;Shai et al 2004).…”