Snuff Use Linked to Heart Failure, Uppsala University Hospital Study

Use of smokeless tobacco (or snuff) may increase the risk for heart failure, mainly of nonischemic origin and chiefly by increasing blood pressure and heart rate, a Swedish study found. When adjusted for age, the use of smokeless tobacco among a cohort of older men was associated with a more than twofold risk of developing heart failure compared with non-users (HR 2.42, ?% CI 1.37 to 4.27), according to Gabriel Arefalk, MD, of Uppsala University Hospital in Uppsala, Sweden, and colleagues. When further adjusted for current smoking dose, pack-years of smoking, diabetes, body mass index, occupational classification, alcohol use, and myocardial infarction before baseline, the use of snuff resulted in a hazard ratio of 2.08 (95% CI 1.03 to 4.22), they reported online in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention Rehabilitation.