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Can Smoking Ban Actually Lower Heart Disease Risk?
 

Every year, an estimated 46,000 Americans died of heart disease that was caused by secondhand smoke, according to the figures revealed by United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The heart disease rates in adult nonsmokers could be raised by 25 to 30 percent if they were exposed to secondhand smoke over a long period of time.

Besides heart disease, smoking could also cause several types of cancer, stroke and emphysema or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

As such, many countries around the world have enacted smoking bans. In the United States, at least 32 states (as at September 2009) have banned smoking in the public places and workplaces.

As reported by 2 research teams from the United States on September 21, 2009, smoking bans in public places could significantly lower the number of heart attack. The findings of both studies support the enactment of smoking bans in enclosed public places to prevent heart attack and improve public health.

In the first study, researchers from the University of Kansas School of Medicine reported in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that smoking bans could lower the annual heart attack rate by 26 percent. They also estimated that a nationwide ban in the United States could spare as many as 154,000 people from heart attack each year.

Data from 10 studies on smoking bans in the United States, Canada and Europe were analyzed to compare rates of heart attack before and after public smoking bans. It was found that smoking bans would benefit women and younger people most possibly because they often work in or frequent bars and restaurants where smoking is common.

The researchers warned that a person’s heart attack risk would be increased even he or she breathes in low doses of cigarette smoke. They also pointed out that their results showed that public smoking bans seem to be tremendously effective in cutting heart attack risk. Meanwhile, it might also help prevent diseases such as lung cancer and emphysema that develop much more slowly than heart attacks.

In the other study, researchers from the University of California-San Francisco showed that smoking bans in the United States, Canada and Europe had an immediate effect that increased over time. After the first year, the number of heart attack was reduced by 17 percent and the reduction was as much as 36 percent after 3 years. The findings were published in the journal Circulation.

The researchers argued that their analysis found that smoking bans had a compelling effect despite some prior studies have been inconsistent in their findings. The results obtained in this study supported the strong evidence that secondhand smoke causes heart attack. Therefore, the researchers suggested that it is a must to pass 100 percent smoke-free laws in all workplaces and public places to protect the public.

While smoking can cause heart disease, it is just one of many risk factors that influence heart disease. Some of the other factors are diabetes, overweight or obesity, hypertension (high blood pressure), physical inactivity, high cholesterol, excessive alcohol drinking, and unhealthy diet.

Therefore, if people wish to prevent heart disease, besides stopping burning cigarette, they should also pay attention on other aspects of their lifestyle. For example, they should maintain healthy weight, adopt healthy and balanced diet, exercise regularly, drink only moderate amount of alcohol and so on. If they have already had medical conditions like diabetics, hypertension or high cholesterol, they should seek help and follow suggestions from their doctors to appropriately manage their conditions.

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