Okay, is secondhand smoke (SHS) bad for you or is it just a political hand grenade used to bully restaurant and bar owners into bankruptcy? We've had a smoking ban in place in my home town for a couple of years now and I have to say, restaurants haven't closed down. If anything, more people go out to eat because they know there won't be any smoking present. It's kind of nice to take my family out without having to worry about what I might or might not be exposing their lungs to, let alone my own.
As it turns out, "YES", SHS is bad for you. Let's look at just one disease that smoking is a risk factor for, ischemic heart disease. Nine studies, have confirmed the statistically significant reduction of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) hospitalizations after smoking bans were put into place in various cities nationwide. That's a heart attack for those not in the medical community. And these just weren't modest or slow-moving reductions, but rather, "sizeable and rapid".
The Pueblo Heart Study looked at the effect of a city smoke ban that took place in July of 2003 in their city. They found a 27% decrease in the hospitalizations due to heart attack (AMI). They continued the study until 2006 to see if the reductions continued or spiked back upwards. They found another 19% drop in hospitalizations due to AMIs.
Now does this mean, smokers just don't handle the sticker shock of a night out as well as non-smokers? Perhaps all the smokers left town for a more smoker friendly domicile. I'm guessing those weren't the case. In fact, the researchers went on to say there were no other significant changes to the population or city. They even researched AMI hospital admissions 18 months prior to the beginning of the smoking ban and found no trend in the data. The evidence does seem to support the assertion that SHS does, in fact, increase mortality and morbidity. It also suggests that the reduced smoking likely held some positive impact on the smoker's own health, as one cannot assume only nonsmokers are admitted to hospitals for AMIs.
There you have it. A pretty well designed study, with powerful results. So what holds a smoker back from quitting? It's real simple, they are either not educated about the dangers of smoking or they just can't stop. Several studies report that most smokers do want to quit at some point, but fail to do so. There are many stop smoking aids available and many smart people who want to help them quit. What would your reason be to quit, what would motivate you to finally make the decision? Think about it and then follow this advice:
1) Find out if you're addicted to nicotine (85% of smokers are)
2) Match up a quit method with your personality, habits, addiction and current health situation
3) Visit with your doctor or other smoking cessation professional
4) Get stop smoking help from someone who really wants to see you succeed
5) Make a plan and set a quit date
