Smoking bans reduce cardiac risk from passive smoking

Smoking bans in public places are effective in reducing the risk of heart attack and cardiovascular disease related to passive smoking, confirmed a report by the U.S. Institute of Medicine released Thursday.

This study shows that non-smokers exposed passively to cigarette smoke, even during relatively short periods, are more prone to heart attacks.

"There is no doubt that smoking bans are giving positive results," notes Lynn Goldman, professor of environmental health at the Faculty of Medicine, Johns Hopkins in Baltimore (Maryland,) who chaired the committee of experts who drafted this report.

"Smoking bans reduce heart attack risk in nonsmokers," said she. "Further research may explain in greater detail the difference between the two groups as well as how passive smoking produces its toxic effects," continued the professor.

Nearly 43% of non-smoking children (up to 18 years) and 37% of adults are exposed to passive smoking in the United States, according to federal statistics.

Despite clear reductions in the proportion of Americans victims of passive smoking during several years, approximately 126 million non-smokers were exposed again in 2000, the report said.

Experts from the Institute of Medicine, part of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, have analyzed eleven key studies on the positive effects of anti-tobacco.

According to these studies, the reduction in the incidence of heart attacks linked to smoking bans is from 6 to 47% in the United States.

Given the variations in how these different studies have been conducted and what they measured, the authors of the report have not been able to determine more precisely the magnitude of the positive effects of smoking bans on the health risk related to passive smoking.

According to the U.S. federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this form of smoking costs the lives of some 46,000 Americans a year.

Smoking bans now cover about 40% of Americans because of laws passed in 22 of the 50 EU states to prohibit smoking in workplaces, public places (airports, railway stations and restaurants, bars etc.).

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