Can Smoking Ban Really Prevent Heart Disease?
Smoking is one of the risk factor that can develop not only heart disease but also a variety of cancers, stroke, and emphysema or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
COPD is a progressive disease that makes a person difficult to breathe, and it can cause coughing that produces large amounts of mucus, wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and other symptoms.
Smoking not only harms the smokers but also the people around the smokers through second-hand smoke. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Untied States, the heart disease rates in adult non-smokers could be raised by 25 to 30 percent through long-term exposure to second-hand smoke. Every year, an estimated 46,000 Americans died of second-hand smoke.
Therefore, cities around the world have been implementing measures to ban smoking officially in the public places. However, people, especially smokers, may wonder whether this measure effective in preventing disease?
The answer is yes!
CDC announced on 31 December 2008 in the their weekly report on death and disease that the smoking ban helped reduce heart attack by more than 40 percent in one United States City and the decline actually lasted 3 years.
In 2003, Pueblo in Colorado passed a municipal law to refrain smoking in workplaces and public places. Meanwhile, CDC officials also commenced a study to track hospitalizations for heart attack after the smoking ban.
The findings showed that there were 399 hospital admissions for heart attacks in Pueblo in the 18 months before the ban, and 237 heart attack hospitalizations in the next year and a half. In other words, there was a drop of 41 percent. Such effect lasted for 3 years.
As explained by CDC, people’s cardiovascular systems are harmed almost immediately by exposing to second-hand smoke, and prolonged exposure to second-hand smoke can cause the non-smokers to develop heart disease, too.
In conclusion, the new study further confirms the existing evidence that smoking ban can really reduce illness and deaths from heart disease.
COPD is a progressive disease that makes a person difficult to breathe, and it can cause coughing that produces large amounts of mucus, wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and other symptoms.
Smoking not only harms the smokers but also the people around the smokers through second-hand smoke. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Untied States, the heart disease rates in adult non-smokers could be raised by 25 to 30 percent through long-term exposure to second-hand smoke. Every year, an estimated 46,000 Americans died of second-hand smoke.
Therefore, cities around the world have been implementing measures to ban smoking officially in the public places. However, people, especially smokers, may wonder whether this measure effective in preventing disease?
The answer is yes!
CDC announced on 31 December 2008 in the their weekly report on death and disease that the smoking ban helped reduce heart attack by more than 40 percent in one United States City and the decline actually lasted 3 years.
In 2003, Pueblo in Colorado passed a municipal law to refrain smoking in workplaces and public places. Meanwhile, CDC officials also commenced a study to track hospitalizations for heart attack after the smoking ban.
The findings showed that there were 399 hospital admissions for heart attacks in Pueblo in the 18 months before the ban, and 237 heart attack hospitalizations in the next year and a half. In other words, there was a drop of 41 percent. Such effect lasted for 3 years.
As explained by CDC, people’s cardiovascular systems are harmed almost immediately by exposing to second-hand smoke, and prolonged exposure to second-hand smoke can cause the non-smokers to develop heart disease, too.
In conclusion, the new study further confirms the existing evidence that smoking ban can really reduce illness and deaths from heart disease.
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