heart disease risk from passive smoking is not directly correlated

At Ukmedix News We've come across evidence which shows that smoking occasionally is actually much worse for you per cigarette than being a full on twenty a-day smoker.

According to Professor Robert West from the University College London if you are a nonsmoker but you live with somebody who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day you still have a much higher risk of suffering from heart disease than a complete nonsmoker. A smoker has a fifteen times higher risk of suffering from heart disease compared to a nonsmoker, however a person living with a smoker who therefore smokes passively has 1/3 of the risk of the smoker!

It sounds crazy that the heart disease risk from passive smoking is not directly correlated to the amount of smoke that you inhale. In the case of cancer, research has shown that the amount of smoke inhaled is correlated to the likelihood of getting cancer.

The importance of this information should not be underestimated by social smokers because this means that even though they only smoke occasionally they are much more likely to suffer from heart attacks and other cardiovascular illnesses as a result of their smoking, well above their proportional rate of smoking. 

Basically if you are a casual smoker it is as if when you light up that casual cigarette you are putting yourself in a situation where you are exposed to a three times bigger proportional risk.

According to the United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention even being exposed to cigarette smoke for as little as 30 minutes could trigger heart attack in individuals who are at high risk of heart disease.

Some evidence as to the rate of heart attacks related to passive smoking can be provided by a small town in Montana called Helena which banned smoking in public places for six months and then canceled the ban following public pressure. In that six month period the number of individuals who went to hospital with heart attacks fell by 40 percent and when the ban was stopped and public smoking was again allowed the heart attack admissions went back to their previous level.

Crazy to think about it, but having a cigarette near somebody with an unhealthy heart could actually end up killing them!