Exposure to all kinds of tobacco, such as smoking it, chewing it and bubble pipes significantly raise a person's chances of having a heart attack, say researchers from McMaster University, Ontario, Canada. There are about 1.3 billion smokers in the world - more than four fifths of them live in developing countries. You can read about this study in the medical journal The Lancet. This study, of 27,000 people in 52 countries, looked beyond just the harmful effects of simply smoking tobacco. It looked various ways of consuming tobacco, from smoking, chewing, second-hand smoke, to smoking it through a water pipe. They compared 12,400 patients who had had a heart attack to 14,000 who were healthy (never had a heart attack or cardiovascular disease). The researchers found that: -- Smoking tobacco triples your heart attack risk -- Smoking just 8 cigarettes a day doubles your heart attack risk -- Chewing tobacco doubles your heart attack risk -- Light smokers (less than 10 cigarettes per day) who give up return to normal non-smoking risk of heart attack after 3 to 5 years -- Heavier smokers (more than 20 cigarettes per day) who give up have a 22% higher heart attack risk 20 years after they quit -- 22 hours per week exposure to second-hand smoke (passive smoking) raises heart attack risk by 45% Study leader, Professor Salim Yusuf, said "Since the risks of heart attack associated with smoking dissipate substantially after smoking cessation, public health efforts to prevent people from starting the habit and promote quitting in current smokers, will have a large impact in the prevention of heart attacks worldwide." Even though heavy smokers may still have remnants of heart attack risk after many years, their risk drops massively as soon as they quit, say the researchers. The researchers concluded that any form of tobacco consumption contributes significantly to acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) risk. All forms of tobacco use should be discouraged. Tobacco use and risk of myocardial infarction in 52 countries in the INTERHEART study: a case-control study Prof Koon K Teo MB , Stephanie Ounpuu PhD, Steven Hawken MSc, MR Pandey MB, Vicent Valentin MD, David Hunt MD, Rafael Diaz MD, Wafa Rashed MD, Rosario Freeman MD, Lixin Jiang MD, Xiaofei Zhang MD and Prof Salim Yusuf DPhil on behalf of the INTERHEART Study Investigators

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