BACKGROUND

Reports showed that estrogen-progestin oral contraceptive (COC) or tobacco smoking causes increased risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in premenopausal women. Studies also suggest that nicotine, a major tobacco alkaloid, may worsen or improve atherothrombotic CVD. Altered hemorheology, prothrombotic and pro-inflammatory biomarkers, have been implicated in the development of atherothrombotic CVD events. However, the effect of non-smoking nicotine exposure on these biomarkers during COC treatment is not yet established. We therefore sought to determine the effects of nicotine exposure during COC treatment on these biomarkers, and also tested the hypothesis that the nicotine effects would be glucocorticoid-dependent.

METHODS

Female Sprague-Dawley rats aged 10 weeks were given (po) vehicle, low-dose nicotine (0.1mg/kg) or high-dose nicotine (1.0mg/kg) with or without COC steroids (5.0μg/kg ethinylestradiol and 25.0μg/kg levonorgestrel) daily for 6 weeks.

RESULTS

COC treatment or nicotine exposure led to increased insulin resistance (IR), hemorheological (blood viscosity, hematocrit and plasma viscosity), prothrombotic (plasminogen activator inhibitor-1), pro-inflammatory (uric acid, C-reactive protein, neutrophil/lymphocyte and platelet/lymphocyte ratios) biomarkers and corticosterone. However, these effects except that on corticosterone were abrogated by nicotine exposure during COC treatment.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study indicates that nicotine- or COC-induced IR may be mediated via inflammatory/thrombotic pathway. The results imply that nicotine exposure could impact negatively on atherothrombotic biomarkers in COC non-users, whereas the impact in COC users could be positive. The results also suggest that the anti-inflammatory, antithrombotic and blood viscosity-lowering effects of nicotine exposure during COC use is circulating glucocorticoid-independent.