Community | September 21, 2009 | 35 comments

Analyses: Heart attack rates fall 17% after smoking bans enacted

source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-09-21-smoking-bans_N.htm

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WakeUpPeople

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-09-21-smoking-bans_N.htm

Community smoking bans have an immediate and dramatic effect on reducing heart attacks, according to two new analyses of laws in the USA, Canada and Europe.
Two separate analyses released Monday each found that heart attack rates fall 17% within a year after smoking bans take effect. One analysis, which included 13 studies, appears in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. A second analysis, which considered 11 studies, appears in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Cigarette smoke can trigger a heart attack in people with underlying heart disease by causing clots or spasms in the blood vessels, says David Goff, a spokesman for the American Heart Association who wasn't involved in either study.

Given that there are about 920,000 heart attacks every year, the studies suggests that public smoking bans could prevent more than 150,000 of these, according to the Cardiology paper.

Taken together, the findings provide strong, consistent evidence that the country should enact more smoke-free laws, Goff says.

"This is a huge, huge effect for a very, very low cost," says Stanton Glantz of the University of California-San Francisco, co-author of the Circulation study.

Smoke-free laws reduce heart attacks in three ways, Glantz says. First, they protect smokers themselves. Second, they protect non-smokers — especially waiters and bartenders — from secondhand smoke. Third, they encourage people to quit or smoke less by making it more difficult for people to find place to light up.
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35 comments // Analyses: Heart attack rates fall 17% after smoking bans enacted

  • mindmymanners
  • vesher
    • 0
      vesher  

    • this is making the assumption that the air we breathe is clean to begin with. wake up, folks. start eating health and exercise. that way your vital organs function properly and can be well-equipped against the stress that comes from smoking, drinking, polluted air/water/food. it's quite simple. build your immune system up, overall. live.

    • 3 years ago
  • graysea
    • 0
      graysea  

    • Let's be serious, banning smoking in restaurants/bars eliminates cigarette smoking in those restaurants/bars. However a smoker will just find another place to light up. It's a good ban if you ask me and I support it, don't get me wrong. I would like to think the tie to heart attacks is legit but I'm not convinced it is.

    • 3 years ago
  • CreditFigaro
  • Sess
  • hunzedog
    • 0
      hunzedog  
    • Sess:

      i quit 2 years ago by taking a deep breath and holding it.
      (then breate out and pay attention to how you feel)thats half of the good feeling you feel when you take a big drag off a cigarette. you usually breath shallow all the time. your body craves a good deep breath. it floods your system with endorphins and gives your brain a oxygen boost. problem is. the only time you really take a deep breath is when you take a big drag off that cigarette. it really helped me. i would make a game of how long i could hold my breath..i also worked out....
      but mostly i was scared of dying. i could feel my heart hurting ......it was only a matter of time. i thought about all my friends and family standing around my grave saying if only he could have quit. its worth it. just be stubborn and quit it.

    • 3 years ago
  • kennymotown
  • smallgod
  • brianwilson
    • 0
      brianwilson  
    • Sess:

      Read some literature by Alan Carr and join an online forum or community comprised of fellow ex smokers or smokers to quit. Everyone has their own way to quit, hopefully you find yours. Don't expect to find it on your first, or even third try- but don't be afraid to embrace it if you do. Good luck.

    • 3 years ago
  • CreditFigaro
    • 0
      CreditFigaro  

    • I think it is ironic how many people are defending their "right to smoke," especially those of you who normally are polar opposites on a lot of other issues.

      Here's the deal:

      Your freedom ends at the tip of my nose.

      For a nonsmoker, it is INCREDIBLY irritating to be sitting next to someone else who is filling the room with the foul odor of cigarette smoke. It swells the linings of your throat and exposes the nonsmoker to all kinds of carcinogens that they have been smart enough to avoid.

      Can you think of any other situation where someone can do the same thing in a restaurant legally?

      Can I into a restaurant and light a fire in the center of the table and throw in plastic cups, electronics and how about some tire rubber? What if I get pleasure out of it?

      Fuck no. I can't do that, no one can.

      Tell me how cigarettes are any different.

      MOST cigarette users WANT to quit. Why? Because, despite their outward position that they "don't care when they die" or "just want to be left alone," they know deep down that they are kiling themselves and making a pariah of themselves.

      Why should I coddle to your self denial and put myself at risk because you can't control your own urges and do something better for yourself. You are free to smoke in your own house, all you want. In the public it's wrong to subject others to health damage, damage that has been proven to exist, part from this research, and part from any sane person's logic.

      We all live in a community and must respect each other's lives. That's part of living in a free society.

    • 3 years ago
  • smallgod
    • 0
      smallgod  
    • Image
    • CreditFigaro:

      But, you know, never let those silly 'facts' get in the way of a good old 'emotional story'. (sorry, my computer won't allow me to change the image for some reason)

      From the article:

      "The alleged dangers of second-hand tobacco smoke, also known as Environmental Tobacco Smoke, or ETS for short, represents junk science's biggest success story. Ever since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decided 10 years ago that ETS caused cancer in nonsmokers, the ETS junk science juggernaut has been unstoppable. Most of us now believe that ETS is dangerous and virtually all of us live out our public lives -- working, shopping, eating, in smoke-free environments.

      But the ETS junk science crusade encountered a major and unanticipated setback a few weeks ago when the British Medical Journal published a study by two U.S. researchers that found no statistically significant association between not only ETS and lung cancer but also between ETS and heart disease.

      The study focused on 35,561 Californians who never smoked but had smoking spouses. The participants were all part of the massive American Cancer Society cancer prevention Study (CPS 1) and their lives and deaths were followed from 1960-1998. The relative risks for never-smokers married to smokers was 0.94 for coronary heart disease and 0.75 for lung cancer. Unlike the government reports cited by junk scientists as proof that ETS causes lung cancer and heart disease, this study is not a meta-analysis -- a combination of individual studies to create a pooled result) -- or a so-called "consensus statement" by hand-picked experts. It is an original, primary study of ETS. As the authors note "none of the other cohort studies ... has more strengths, and none has presented as many detailed results."

      To anyone who has followed the scientific literature on ETS, as opposed to the anti-smoking movements, statements and government pronouncements, this study should come as no surprise. For one thing, the pattern of study results has been unchanged since the first studies in the 1980s. Over the 20-odd years of ETS studies, some 60 studies have reported results similar to this one, finding no statistically significant association between ETS and lung cancer. Of the 11 studies that have found a statistically significant association, none has reported an overall strong relative risk. This is particularly telling since epidemiological studies of real as opposed to phantom risks are usually weak at first but gain strength and clarity with time. The ETS studies have continued to be equivocal.

      The only way in which the "case" against second-hand smoke has been made is through the highly controversial use of meta analysis in which individually inconclusive studies have been pooled to produce statistically significant relative risks. This is the way in which every major government report on the alleged dangers of ETS has been created. The logic here is that if you put 10 leaking buckets together, they might just hold water. Unfortunately, this hasn't worked, for however hard you pound the data the relative risk for ETS and lung cancer and heart disease just won't rise beyond about 1.50, a relatively insignificant level."

    • 3 years ago
  • CreditFigaro
    • 0
      CreditFigaro  
    • CreditFigaro:

      OK, Fair enough.

      I did hinge much of my argument on the fact that it is a health issue. This research is significant, it proves that spouses respect each other not to smoke around each other. What it does NOT prove is that second hand smoke is safe.

      More importantly, this issue was never about whether or not second hand smoke is going to cause cancer. It's about respecting people around you in an establishment.

      I can give another example in my line of "things you don't do in public out of respect for those around you":

      Can you freely go into a quiet restaurant start playing your favorite music at top volume while other people are trying to enjoy the dinner they paid for? No, you can't. You would be escorted out promptly.

      Given the way my body reacts to second hand smoke, I would be amazed if it wasn't bad for you. However, should it be shown that there is no correlation between cancer and second hand smoke... ITS IRRELEVANT!! It's not about whether it's healthy or not. It's about whether or not it irritates people around you.

      Loud music doesn't cause cancer, neither would shooting people in a bar with a super soaker. Regardless, it's fucking annoying.

    • 3 years ago
  • jaystyx
  • skatherine
    • 0
      skatherine  

    • Taking away our rights to smoke/where we can smoke does not incite us to smoke less... just to light one up in defiance &blow the smoke in your face.

    • 3 years ago
  • kyackr
    • 0
      kyackr  
    • skatherine:

      that has not been my experience of the smokers in my community.. they have adapted to gathering outdoors and smoking .. and fully understand why a non smoker may not want them stinking up the restaurant or whatever..
      not much arrogant lighting up and blowing smoke in non smoker faces where i live? is that shit really going on in your area?

    • 3 years ago
  • afitzgerald
  • Kepano
    • 0
      Kepano  

    • In Hawai'i it is illegal to smoke within 20 feet of any public/private building, but I don't think the government can control this, because people still smoke within this perimeter and nothing is done about it, LOL. It does deter some people, except the ignorant tourist.

    • 3 years ago
  • CreditFigaro
  • ProjectBat
  • hunzedog
    • 0
      hunzedog  

    • cigaretts should be prescribed by a physician. that way when people die from smoking they can look at a chart and see how many cigaretts it takes to kill people . then they could prescribe less cigaretts so people wouldnt die so much.

    • 3 years ago
  • Ares
    • 0
      Ares  
    • hunzedog:

      Good idea. We can also make carrots available by prescription only. And automobiles, and soda, and vegetable oil, and bacon, and beef, and chicken, and anything else that could possibly kill you. That we nobody would ever die, ever, and everything would be sunshine and farts all day every day for all eternity.

      It's so simple, why have we not done this yet?

    • 3 years ago
  • jeffissleeping
    • 0
      jeffissleeping  

    • Haha slarabee it's so true. I was sitting next to a guy at lunch today, talking about the state-wide NC resturant smoking ban. He was like, 'smoking is soo bad for you'...all while whoofing down a bacon cheeseburger with fries and a coke. I nodded, finished my joint, and left.

    • 3 years ago
  • vesher
    • 0
      vesher  
    • jeffissleeping:

      yes. the underlying issue is overall health. aka that of the cardiovascular sort.

      "Cigarette smoke can trigger a heart attack in people with underlying heart disease by causing clots or spasms in the blood vessels, says David Goff, a spokesman for the American Heart Association who wasn't involved in either study."

      if we took better care of our bodies, ate better and exercised as a nation, we could partake in the reckless behaviours that put stress on our vital organs.

    • 3 years ago
  • slarabee
  • Chris_Globus
  • Ares
  • jeffissleeping
  • Ares
    • 0
      Ares  
    • jeffissleeping:

      If marijuana is regulated you will see the introduction of carcinogenic preservatives to ensure the safety and regularity of the product, such that marijuana cigarettes will be just as dangerous as tobacco cigarettes.

      I agree that it should either be both or neither, but don't pretend like one would be better than the other.

    • 3 years ago
  • randallr01
  • Ares
    • 0
      Ares  
    • jeffissleeping:

      Even pipe tobacco or rolling tobacco you purchase nowadays are regulated with artificial preservatives. You can buy smokes like American Spirit which is all natural, but you'll pay for it. Do you mean to tell me that every single pot smoker out there is going to shell out the extra dough for high quality weed-erettes? I don't think so, I'd count on them following the same historical pattern that tobacco smokers have taken. Not to mention the fact that the mental effects of marijuana vastly outweigh those of tobacco cigarettes, which is all the more reason for the government to step in and regulate it, which means they will be made less safe in order to be more stable.

      Deal wid'it.

    • 3 years ago
  • kennymotown
  • rickm8
  • kennymotown
  • CreditFigaro
  • WakeUpPeople

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