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Heart attacks in
non-smokers decreased with smoking ban
Newswise — People with
no risk factors for heart disease can still
experience heart attacks. An Indiana
University study found that after a
countywide smoking ban was implemented,
hospital admissions for such heart attacks
dropped 70 percent for non-smokers -- but
not for smokers.
"Heart attack
admissions for smokers saw no similar
decline during the study, so the benefits of
the ban appear to come more from the reduced
exposure to second-hand smoke among
non-smokers than from reduced consumption of
tobacco among smokers," said Dong-Chul Seo,
lead author and an assistant professor in IU
Bloomington's Department of Applied Health
Science.
The study, published in
the latest Journal of Drug Education, was
the first to examine the effect of public
smoking bans on heart attacks in
non-smokers. Previous studies did not
distinguish between non-smokers and smokers
when examining the effect of the bans or
specifically look at non-smokers who had no
risk factors for heart disease, such as high
blood pressure, high cholesterol or previous
heart surgery.
Exposure to second-hand
smoke for just 30 minutes can rapidly
increase a person's risk for heart attack,
even if they have no risk factors. The
smoke, which contains carbon monoxide,
causes blood vessels to constrict and
reduces the amount of oxygen that can be
transported in the blood.
"What concerns us is
the fact that about half of all non-smoking
Americans are regularly exposed to
second-hand smoke, even though more than 500
municipalities nationwide have adopted some
form of a smoking ban in public places,"
said Seo, whose research interests include
smoking and obesity prevention.
Researchers examined
hospital admissions for acute myocardial
infarction (AMI) in Monroe County, Ind., and
Delaware County, Ind., which are comparable
in a number of ways, including population,
presence of a college community, median
income, racial/ethnic diversity and heart
disease death rates.
AMI, commonly referred
to as heart attack, occurs when the blood
supply to a part of the heart is blocked. It
is the leading cause of death for men and
women nationwide. Delaware County had no
smoking bans during the study period, while
Monroe County prohibited smoking in
restaurants, bars, retail spaces and
workplaces.
The study compared the
two counties in addition to analyzing the
35,482 hospital admissions in Monroe county
22 months before and 22 months after the
initial smoking ban was adopted.
In Monroe County, there
was a 70 percent drop in the number of
hospital admissions for AMI among
non-smoking patients with no history of
heart disease, compared to an 11 percent
drop in Delaware County. This translates
into a 59 percent net decrease in the number
of non-smoking patient admissions for heart
attacks after the Monroe County public
smoking ban was enforced.
The study was supported
by the American Institutes for Research and
Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation.
The co-author is Mohammad R. Torabi,
professor and chair of the Department of
Applied Health Science in IU Bloomington's
School of Health, Physical Education and
Recreation.
"Reduced admissions for
acute myocardial infarction associated with
a public smoking ban: Matched controlled
study," Journal of Drug Education. Vol. 3
(3), 2007.
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