Smoking, oral contraceptives, and cardiovascular reactivity to stress.

Objective: To investigate the effects of smoking and oral contraceptive (OC) formulation on hemodynamic responses to stress in women.

Methods: Twenty-three smokers and 23 nonsmokers taking different OC formulations (ie, containing higher or lower androgenic progesterones) were tested for cardiovascular reactivity during mathematic, speech preparation, speech, and cold pressor stress.

Results: During mental stress, smokers, regardless of OC formulation, had lower systolic blood pressure (BP) (eg, 10.