Smoking Bans Reduce Heart Attacks

Community smoking bans have an immediate and dramatic effect on reducing heart attacks, according to two new analyses of laws in the USA, Canada, and Europe. Researchers in both studies found that heart attack rates fall 17 percent within a year after smoking bans take effect, as reported in the USA Today.



After three years, the analyses indicated that the rate of heart attacks had decreased about 26 percent, the Wall Street Journal reports. The findings are based on analyses of studies that involved a total of approximately 24 million people. The researchers cautioned against basing hard conclusions on their findings, however, because of statistical flaws in their reports from aggregating data from studies with various designs and goals.

Exactly what can breathing in the smoke from someone else's cigarette do to you? It can:

Make the blood sticky and more prone to clotting
Stiffen the arteries
Disrupt crucial functions of the arteries
Decrease good HDL cholesterol
Stimulate inflammation
Make heart attacks worse
Increase damage from free radicals
Increase risk of heart rhythm problems
Increase insulin resistance

Quit smoking without gaining weight

Posted in: Cigarette, Health, Heart disease, Smoking ban