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Passive Smoke Bad for Heart |
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Passive Smoke Bad for Heart |
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| Passive Smoke Bad
for Heart Research has been divided on whether passive smoking can cause heart disease, but a new report suggests there is a slightly increased risk. Researchers at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans analyzed 18 studies on the relationship between passive smoking and heart disease. While it's been long known active smoking increases the risk of heart disease, scientists have not concluded whether passive smoking also poses a risk. According to the new report, nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke increased their risk of heart disease by 1.25 times compared with nonsmokers who were not exposed. Researchers also say there was a significant relationship between the amount of exposure and nonsmokers' response in the studies they analyzed. Nonsmokers exposed to the smoke of one to 19 cigarettes a day ran 1.23 times the risk and those exposed to more than 20 cigarettes daily ran 1.31 times the risk of nonsmokers who were not exposed. Reseachers say environmental smoke may increase the heart rate, blood pressure and carbon monoxide levels in the blood. "The only safe way to protect nonsmokers from exposure to cigarette smoke is to eliminate this health hazard from public places and workplaces, as well as from the home," the researchers write in the March 25 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. |