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cigarettes and your health
smoking bans reduce the incidence of heart attacks In the 1st study of its kind, researchers have found that the number of heart attack victims admitted to a regional hospital dropped by nearly Sixty percent during the 1st six months that a smoke-free ordinance was in effect in the area.
The study's authors attribute much of the steep decline in acute myocardial infarctions (AMI) to a near-elimination of the rapid and harmful effects of secondhand smoke on blood platelets and the arteries that supply blood to the heart. Damage to these and other functions increases the likelihood and seriousness of a cardiovascular "event," they note. Smoke-free environments also encourage smokers to reduce or stop smoking, which also reduces heart attack risk, they point out. The findings were reported Tuesday, April 1, at the scientific sessions of the American College of Cardiology meeting in Chicago. During an average 6 month period, the number of hospital admissions for AMI from people living or working in Helena is just under 7 per month. But during the 6 months that the ordinance was in force, the number of hospital admission for AMI in Helena declined to less than 4 per month - a drop of nearly Sixty percent in the number of admissions. There was no significant change in the number of admissions from outside the Helena area. The study took place in Helena, Montana, where a smoke-free ordinance went into effect June 5, 2002 and was suspended in a legal challenge 6 months later. One hospital -- St. Peter's Community Hospital -- serves almost all cardiac patients in the region, with a population of 65,913. |
The researchers compared hospital charts for patients admitted with primary or secondary diagnosis of AMI from the smoke-free Helena area with those from outside the area. They also compared records for the period of the smoke-free ordinance with records from more than 4 years before that ordinance went into effect. They accounted for seasonal differences so the records from the smoke-free period could be reliably compared with the records from other times of the year.
The authors note that this is the 1st empirical evidence suggesting that smoke-free policies not only protect people from long-term dangers of secondhand smoke, but they also rapidly prevent heart attacks.
"This striking finding suggests that protecting people from the toxins in secondhand smoke not only make life more pleasant; it immediately starts saving lives," said Stanton Glantz, PhD, professor of medicine at UCSF Cardiovascular Research Institute and a statistics authority. "This work substantially raises the stakes in debates over enacting and protecting smoke-free ordinances."
Glantz, who serves as director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at UCSF, provided the study's statistical analysis.
Many important physiological effects of secondhand smoke on cardiovascular function occur within minutes of exposure and are nearly as large as they are for smokers, studies have shown. Within 5 minutes, the aorta becomes stiffer; within Thirty minutes, blood platelets are activated, which makes the blood "stickier" and damages artery linings. In the same time period, the ability of blood vessels to dilate to get more blood to the heart and other organs is reduced. Within 2 hours of exposure to secondhand smoke, heart rhythm is disturbed, according to a number of studies.
The heart attack risk for smokers is known to drop in 1/2 within a year of quitting, and according to another analysis, smoke-free workplace and public place laws such as the one in Helena encourage people to stop smoking. These effects, combined with the effect of reduced exposure to secondhand smoke, contributed to the rapid drop in the incidence of heart attack, the researchers suggest.
The study was funded in part by the National Cancer Institute.
The study was undertaken in Helena by Richard P. Sargent, MD, and Robert M. Shepard, MD, physicians at the city's St. Peter's Community Hospital who serve on the hospital’s health care quality board. It was presented by Sargent at the American College of Cardiology meeting.
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