Half an hour in a smoky pub 'could trigger heart attack'

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Just half an hour in a smoky pub 'could trigger heart attack'

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor

27 April 2004

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/story.jsp?story=515698

 

People at risk of heart disease should avoid buildings where smoking is

permitted, the federal agency for public health in the United States said

yesterday in the starkest warning yet about the dangers of tobacco.

 

Even 30 minutes of exposure to other people's smoke, while eating in a

restaurant or sitting in an office, might be enough to trigger a fatal heart

attack for those at risk, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention

(CDC) in Atlanta said.

 

It is the first time the US government agency in charge of protecting the

nation's health has told non-smokers that they should not enter buildings or

enclosed spaces where other people are smoking. The warning comes in the

wake of growing evidence that, in addition to the well-known long-term

effects of smoking in causing heart disease and cancer, toxins in tobacco

smoke also have rapid short-term effects in causing the blood to clot.

 

The UK Department of Health said yesterday that it had consistently said

smoke-free polices were the ideal and had drawn attention in leaflets to the

immediate effects of second-hand smoke on the heart. A spokeswoman said:

" People with heart conditions do need to take extra precautions. "

 

The CDC's stronger warning is contained in a commentary, published in the

British Medical Journal, accompanying a study of Helena, a small town in

Montana, which banned smoking in public in June 2002 only to have the ban

rescinded six months later by opponents of the law.

 

During the ban, when smoking was outlawed in offices, factories,

restaurants, bars and all public enclosed spaces, heart attack admissions to

the local hospital fell by 40 per cent. After the ban was lifted, the heart

attack rate increased to its former level.

 

The study was first published online earlier this month at www.bmj.com, but

this week it has appeared in the paper edition of the journal with, for the

first time, the commentary by the CDC.

 

Even eating in a smoky restaurant could cause a heart attack, said the

authors, Terry Pechacek and Stephen Babb of the Office on Smoking and Health

at the CDC. They said: " As unlikely as this sounds, a growing body of

scientific data suggests that this is possible. "

 

Scientists have been puzzled by the disproportionate risks associated with

passive smoking. A non-smoker who lives with a person who smokes 20

cigarettes a day has one-third of the risk of their partner, even though

they are actually exposed to only 1 per cent of the smoke.

 

Laboratory evidence suggests that this is because toxins in tobacco smoke

peak at low levels of exposure, increasing the stickiness of the blood (the

tendency of the platelets to aggregate) and inflaming the arteries,

increasing the risk of thrombosis - a blood clot that can trigger a heart

attack.

 

The result is that the risk of heart problems increases rapidly for people

who smoke one to five cigarettes a day, but then rises more slowly as

smoking increases to 20 cigarettes a day.

28 April 2004 01:08