1:22 p.m. ET (1822 GMT) March 16, 1998
NEW YORK — Nonsmoking individuals living with heavy smokers
have four times the risk of heart attack compared with those who
live in smoke-free environments, according to a study.
"These results underline the importance of new public health
policy
against environmental tobacco smoke,'' say Argentine researchers
led by Dr. Mario Ciruzzi of the Argentine Society of Cardiology
in
Buenos Aires.
The report, published in the current issue of the Journal of the
American College of Cardiology, included 336 adults who had been
admitted to the hospital after a heart attack, and 446 patients
admitted to hospital for reasons unrelated to heart disease.
The researchers discovered that 43% of the heart attack patients
reported a smoking spouse or child, compared with just 28% of
those admitted for other reasons.
The study also found that nonsmokers increased their risk of
suffering from heart attack by 59% if they lived with a smoking
spouse. Risks were even higher for men than for women —
nonsmoking husbands of smoking wives faced a 92% increase in
their risk for heart attack, compared with a 50% increased risk
among the nonsmoking wives of smoking husbands.
There was also "a strong positive association between the
number
of cigarettes smoked per day by the spouse and the risk of (heart
attack) for the (nonsmoking) patient,'' the researchers say.
Specifically, they found that nonsmokers with housemates who
smoked more than 20 cigarettes per day had more than four times
the risk of heart attack compared with people who lived in a
smoke-free environment.
The inhalation of tobacco smoke damages cardiac health by
reducing the ability of the blood to deliver oxygen to the heart,
while at the same time increasing the activity of blood clotting
cells,
which could encourage the formation of (potentially dangerous)
clots.
In a related study, Greek researchers at University of Athens say
close investigation of 48 smoking and nonsmoking men revealed
that "both passive ('secondhand') and active smoking are
associated
with an acute deterioration in the elastic properties of the
aorta,'' the
major artery leading away from the heart.
In their study, published in the current issue of the Annals of
Internal Medicine, the researchers explain that the aorta acts
like
"an elastic buffering chamber'' for blood leaving the heart,
and any
loss of elasticity forces the heart to work harder to pump blood.
They discovered a significant "stiffening'' of the aortic
wall occurred
"soon after the initiation of passive or active smoking...
(which) is
maintained for at least 20 minutes.''
SOURCE: Journal of the American College of Cardiology
(1998;31:797-803); Annals of Internal Medicine
(1998;128:426-434)