PERSONAL HEALTH : Smoke Fouls Fowls’ Arteries

Smoked chicken has been given new meaning in Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Assn.

According to a study, young roosters exposed to passive tobacco smoke develop clogged arteries at a greater rate than those that breathe only clean air.

Scientists at New York University Medical Center reported that the kind of artery blockage cockerels develop in their abdominal aortas is virtually the same as the blockage that develops in human coronary arteries.

Arthur Penn and colleague Carroll A. Snyder, both professors of environmental medicine at NYU Institute of Environmental Medicine in Tuxedo, N.Y., placed 30 young male chickens in a special inhalation chamber. They were exposed to secondhand cigarette smoke for six hours a day, five days a week for 16 weeks.

At the same time, a dozen age-matched chickens were placed in a chamber where they breathed filtered air over a similar period.

Researchers found that the arterial plaque in the abdomens of the chickens exposed to the smoke grew much faster. Although these birds commonly develop such lesions, they are normally very slow-growing.