It also increases their risk of heart attacks or strokes when they grow up, according to a an international study published today.
The research, which lends weight to campaigns for smoking to be banned in private cars and homes, found passive smoking leads to a thickening of children's artery walls.
It adds over three years to the age of blood vessels by adulthood.
"Exposure to passive smoke in childhood causes direct and irreversible damage to the structure of the arteries," said Seana Gall, a researcher in cardiovascular epidemiology who led the study at the University of Tasmania.
As well as the six million people a year killed by their own smoking, the World Health Organisation says another 600,000 die every year as a result of exposure to other people's smoke – known as second-hand or passive smoking.
About 40% of all children are regularly exposed to second-hand smoke at home, and almost a third of the deaths attributable to second-hand smoke are in children.
Today’s study, published in the European Heart Journal, was the first to follow children through to adulthood to look at links between exposure to parents' smoking and thickness of the innermost two layers of the arterial wall, known as carotidintima-media thickness (IMT).
Researchers from Finland and Australia looked at data from 2,401 people in Finland and 1,375 people in Australia who were asked about their parents' smoking habits.
The scientists used ultrasound to measure the thickness of the children's artery walls once they had reached adulthood.
The results showed that carotid IMT in adulthood was 0.015mm thicker in those exposed to both parents smoking than in those whose parents did not smoke.
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