Skin blood flow reduction induced by cigarette smoking: role of vasopressin

Abstract

The effect of vasopressin released by cigarette smoking on blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR), and skin blood flow (SBF) was investigated in 12 normotensive habitual smokers. At a 1-wk interval, each subject smoked within 10 min two cigarettes before and after intravenous injection of either the specific vascular vasopressin antagonist d(CH2)5Tyr(Me)AVP (5 micrograms/kg) or its vehicle administered in double-blind fashion. SBF was assessed with a laser Doppler flowmeter. Smoking increased plasma vasopressin (P less than 0.01). In six subjects subsequently treated with the antagonist, plasma vasopressin rose to greater than 10 pg/ml and SBF fell by 18.2 +/- 4.8%. This SBF reduction was prevented by the vasopressin antagonist. In contrast, the vehicle had no effect. In the 24 studies taken together, there was a significant correlation (r = -0.60, P less than 0.01) between the SBF decrease during the first smoking period and the plasma vasopressin levels measured afterwards. The BP and HR rise caused by smoking was not modified by the antagonist. Thus it appears that the decrease in SBF induced by smoking is due to enhanced vasopressin secretion.

The continuous and simultaneous blood flow velocity measurement of four cerebral vessels and a peripheral vessel during cigarette smoking

“…As for the acute e¤ect of smoking on peripheral circulation, vasoconstriction by nicotine and decrease of blood ßow in skin by increase of vasopressin secretion was reported (Waeber et al 1984). Three of seven RAs did not show statistically signiÞcantly decrease 1 min after commencement.…”

Acute Effects of Nicotine and Smoking on Blood Flow, Tissue Oxygen, and Aerobe Metabolism of the Skin and Subcutis

“…Smoking induces ␣1-adreno-mediated vasoconstriction and release vasopressin [15,28,29], which have been shown to reduce non-nutritive blood flow and increase oxygen uptake [24]. In addition, smoking-induced increase of skin sympathetic activity and arterial baroreflex alterations, which also affect the non-nutritive blood flow, may play a role as well [15, 24, 29 -31].…”

Direct Effects of Nicotine on Contractility of the Uterine Artery in Pregnancy

“…Nicotine can inhibit nitric oxide release and decrease endothelium-dependent vasorelaxation (Mayhan and Patel, 1997;Mayhan and Sharpe, 1999;Black et al, 2001;Conklin et al, 2001). In addition, both direct vasoconstriction and relaxation induced by nicotine have been reported previously (Waeber et al, 1984;Toda et al, 1995;Zhang et al, 1998;Wang and Wang, 2000). Although clinical and in vivo studies have demonstrated that nicotine decreases uterine blood flow in pregnancy, the direct effect of nicotine on uterine artery contractility has not been studied.…”