Smoking can have more serious health effects rather than the commonly known damage to the lungs and a bad breath. It has also been associated with the risk of kidney disease, not just in adults only bout also children have a possibility of getting kidney disease. A recent research aimed at identifying how secondhand smoke affects the health of kidney in teens. The study concluded that there was actually a link but they couldn’t confirm whether exposure to secondhand smoke actually caused the kidney problems. However, the evidence collected was sufficient to warrant deeper studies on the same issue in the future.

A study on effects of smoking around the children

The lead researcher in this study was Ester Garcia Esquainas from John Hopkins University and aimed at identifying whether exposure to secondhand smoke among children increased the risk of developing chronic kidney disease. The research was focused on the participation of 7, 516 teens who were aged between 12 and 17 years. During the survey, the researchers first tested the blood of the participants for cotinine and creatine. Creatine is basically the breakdown product that gives information on how healthy the person’s kidney is. Cotinine is one of the chemicals present in tobacco which results after nicotine has been metabolized. The level of cotinine in the body will give details on amount of secondhand smoke the person is exposed to.

Teens with cotinine levels above 10ng/ml and who reported to be smoking were categorized to be active smokers. Teens that had at least a smoker close to them in their life and with about 0.05ng/ml cotinine level was regarded as those in exposure of secondhand smoke. Their estimated glomerular filtration rate was also studied based on creatine levels as a way of determined the amount of blood that the kidneys filtered in order to determine how health a teen’s kidney was.

Conclusion of the study

As per the research findings, the researchers observed a decrease in glomerular filtration rate of the teens with a proportional increase in the concentration of cotinine in the blood. After the demographic, socioeconomic and weight characteristics were factored in, the above relationship didn’t change. These results provided evidence that led to the conclusion that secondhand smoke in teens can lead to dysfunction of the kidney. According to evidence collected from adults, there was a suggestion that cumulative exposure to smoke and heavy smoking is a critical factor that can lead to chronic kidney disease among men and women. Despite this, the data doesn’t provide a conclusive risk on kidney disease and secondhand smoke. In addition, the study was coupled with a number of limitations especially on the method used considering that lifestyle factors of the factors could also have influenced the health of their kidney. All in all, the study was very clear on the fact that smoking around children could expose them to some serious health risks.