While cigarette smoking can induce numerous medical disorders to smokers themselves, people who are exposed to smokers’ tobacco smoke are also at a high risk of getting similar medical disorders. One of the disorders is heart disease, one of the leading killers in the world.
Researchers from the University College London reported that people who are around smokers and breathe in a lot of smoke are twice as likely to die from heart disease as those who are exposed to lower levels of secondhand smoke. Their study, which covered more than 13,000 people in England and Scotland, was published on June 29, 2010 in the ‘Journal of the American College of Cardiology’.
A saliva test was used to measure the amount of secondhand smoke people have been exposed to and the participants were followed for an average of 8 years, keeping track of who developed heart disease and who died.
It was found that 32 out of about 1,500 people who had never smoked but were exposed to high levels of secondhand smoke died of heart disease. In comparison, only 15 out of about 1,000 people who never smoked but with low exposure. Their analysis, which was restricted to never-smokers only, showed that high secondhand smoke exposure was linked to more than a 2-fold increased risk of dying from heart disease.
High level of exposure, according to the definition set by the researchers, would be equivalent to living with a smoker and exposed to secondhand smoke almost every day.
This is definitely not the first study to reveal such association. In a 10-year study published in 1997 in the journal ‘Circulation’, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health reported that women who never smoked but regularly exposed to other peoples’ smoking in home or work had their risk of heart disease almost doubled.
More than 32,000 healthy women who never lighted up a cigarette were tracked. These women, aged between 36 and 61 when the study began, suffered 152 heart attacks, 25 of them fatal.
In order to prevent heart disease, smokers are urged to give up this unhealthy and selfish habit for the sake of their loved ones. Meanwhile, people staying with smokers should strive to help them quit smoking so as to lower the risk of heart disease for all in the house.
It means that smoking is really dangerous. It is proven that either active or passive smokers can get the bad effect from it. Even, passive smoker will have more bad effects than the active smokers. Because of this reason, it is important for all in order not to smoke.
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