Do Weight Changes Affect the Association between Smoking Cessation and the Risk of Stroke Subtypes in Korean Males?

(1) Background: We investigated whether weight changes affect the association between smoking cessation and stroke risk; (2) Methods: Overall, 719,040 males were categorized into eight groups according to smoking status (sustained smokers, non-smokers, long-term quitters (quit > 4 years), and recent quitters (quit < 4 years)) and post-cessation weight change (-5 kg, -5.0 to 0.1 kg, maintainers, 0.1-5.0 kg, and >5.0 kg). The hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for incident total, ischemic, and hemorrhagic strokes, including subarachnoid and intracerebral hemorrhage, were calculated using Cox proportional hazard models; (3) Results: We detected 38,730 strokes (median follow-up, 25.7 years), including 30,609 ischemic and 9055 hemorrhagic strokes. For recent quitters with a >5.0 kg or 0.1-5.0 kg weight increase, maintainers, or those who lost 0.1-5 kg, the multivariable HR for total stroke was 0.73 (95% CI, 0.67-0.79), 0.78 (95% CI, 0.74-0.82), 0.77 (95% CI, 0.69-0.85), 0.84 (95% CI, 0.77-0.90), and 1.06 (95% CI, 0.92-1.23), respectively, compared with that of sustained smokers; (4) Conclusions: Comparable patterns were obtained for stroke subtypes. Thus, we strongly recommend quitting smoking, as weight gain after quitting smoking does not alter the stroke-related benefits.