Smoking, heart attacks linked

2009-01-01 11:33

Atlanta - A smoking ban in one Colorado city led to a dramatic drop in heart attack hospitalisations, according to a new study that is considered the best and longest-term research to show such a link.

The rate of hospitalised cases dropped 41% three years after the ban of workplace smoking in Pueblo, Colorado, took effect. There was no such drop in two neighbouring areas, and researchers believe it's a clear sign the ban was responsible.

The study suggests that second hand smoke may be a terrible and under-recognised cause of heart attack deaths in this country, said one of its authors, Terry Pechacek of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

At least eight earlier studies have linked smoking bans to decreased heart attacks, but none ran as long as three years. Some critics had questioned whether a ban could have such an immediate impact, and suggested other factors could have driven the declines.

The new study looked at heart attack hospitalisations for three years following the July 1 2003 enactment of Pueblo's ban, and found declines as great or greater than what was seen in the other research.

Dramatic

"This study is very dramatic," said Dr Michael Thun, a researcher with the American Cancer Society.

"This is now the ninth study, so it is clear that smoke-free laws are one of the most effective and cost-effective to reduce heart attacks," said Thun, who was not involved in the CDC study released on Thursday.

Smoking bans are designed not only to cut smoking rates, but also to reduce second hand tobacco smoke. It is a widely recognised cause of lung cancer, but its effect on heart disease can be more immediate.

It not only damages the lining of blood vessels, but also increases the kind of blood clotting that leads to heart attacks. Reducing exposure to smoke can quickly cut the risk of clotting, some experts said.

"You remove the final one or two links in the chain" of events leading to a heart attack, Thun said.

Second hand smoke causes an estimated 46 000 heart disease deaths and about 3 000 lung cancer deaths among non-smokers each year, according to statistics cited by the CDC.

Significant drop in heart attacks

In the new study, researchers reviewed hospital admissions for heart attacks in Pueblo. Patients were classified by post codes. They then looked at the same data for two nearby areas that did not have bans - the area of Pueblo County outside the city and for El Paso County.

In Pueblo, the rate of heart attacks dropped from 257 per 100 000 people before the ban to 152 per 100 000 in the three years afterward. There were no significant changes in the two other areas.

The study assumed declines in the amount of second hand smoke in Pueblo buildings after the ban, but did not try to measure that.

The researchers also did not sort out which heart attack patients were smokers and which were not, so it's unclear how much of the decline can be attributed to reduced second hand smoke.

- AP