KARACHI, May 28: The children who light up just once cigarette are twice as likely to become steady smokers later. British researchers report that among 11-year-olds, the desire to smoke can lie dormant for more than three years after trying just one cigarette.

The researchers call this a ‘sleeper effect’ that doubles the risk that a child who smokes just one cigarette will become a regular smoker, according to their report in the recent issue of the Tobacco Control.

“Although it is known that past smoking behaviour is associated with future smoking, this is the first time that a period of ‘dormant vulnerability’ has been shown, whereby smoking a single cigarette can leave children susceptible to smoking uptake for several years,” said lead researcher Jennifer Fidler, a research psychologist at the University College London's Department of Epidemiology and Public Health.

The findings come as the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported that almost two in 10 (17.3 per cent) of children aged 13 to 15 worldwide use tobacco products. Tobacco-use is highest in North America and Europe, and lowest in Southeast Asian and western Pacific regions, the report said.

In their study, Fidler and her colleagues collected data of 5,863 children aged 11 to 16 years from schools in South London who participated in annual surveys.

The researchers also had measurements of ‘salivary cotinine’, which is an indicator of nicotine intake. For a five-year period, full smoking data was available for 35 per cent of the children.

By the age of 14 years, the students who had tried smoking just once at the age of 11, were twice as likely to have become regular smokers as children who had not tried smoking, the researchers found.

“This was despite a gap of up to three years, when no further smoking occurred,” Fidler said.

The findings were not influenced by gender, ethnicity and economic status. They also held up after the researchers took into account whether parents smoked or whether the child was rebellious.

“Preventing children from trying even one cigarette may, therefore, appear an important goal,” Fidler said.—PPI