Many communities have enacted smoking bans in public places, some of which have been in effect for several years. How is that affecting our overall health? According to an analysis of studies, the bans are significantly cutting the rate of heart attacks in those communities.
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(image credit: Flickr user bennylin0724)
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Nightcrawlerx.
"By lumping 11 studies together, we have increased the certainty that smoking bans really do reduce the risk of heart attack," lead author Dr David G Meyers (University of Kansas School of Public Medicine, Kansas City) told heartwire. Meyers and colleagues report their findings online September 21, 2009 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Meyers says there are some additional messages from this review. Although they found, on average, a 17% reduction in AMI, this figure is "deceptive," he says, because they also showed—in longer-term studies—a 26% decrease in heart attacks per year that the ban had existed. So this proves "the longer a community bans smoking, the greater the effect." It also appears the people who seem to derive the greatest benefit from the bans are younger and often predominantly female—likely those working in the hospitality and entertainment industry, he says.
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(image credit: Flickr user bennylin0724)
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Nightcrawlerx.
Oh, and I'm a non-smoker. Why isn't anyone beating up on the fat and obese?
That's reassuringly professional!
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7451/
"Although The Sunday Times claimed a 10 per cent drop in heart attacks, nowhere in the 500 word article was a source mentioned and no one was quoted giving this figure. The ‘study’ the newspaper referred to does not exist, and the anti-smoking pressure group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) – not renowned for downplaying the risks of passive smoking – went to the unusual lengths of posting a notice on its website the following day to point out that ‘the figures reported in The Sunday Times yesterday (and now circulating elsewhere) are not based on any research conducted to date’"
Several other studies showing supposed benefits are listed - and debunked - in the article in Spiked.
There may have been an effect, but not to the extent this supposed "study" purported to find. More likely so small as to be "statistically insignificant."