The main cause of heart attack decrease among smokers and non-smokers is the smoking ban in public places. A previous study showed that smoking has caused a fall in heart attack rates of about 10%. Health researchers have found a rigorous fall than they had suspected in the number of heart attacks in England in the year after the ban was imposed in July 2007. For example, in Scotland, where the ban was introduced a year earlier, heart attack rates have fallen by about 14% because of the ban. Similar results are expected in Wales where a third study was insufficient. The luck of the smoking ban is arising as one of the most important ameliorations in public health that Britain has seen, even estimated by heart attack rates alone.

The early results of the study of England will increase needs for an addition ban. Ministers have now empowered research into the possibility of banning smoking in cars, where children are at their most exposed to cigarette smoke. There have also been proposing that parents could be banned from smoking at home in front of children. Researchers explained that the ban should bring more advantages through reductions in cancers caused by smoking and chronic pulmonary disease. “We always knew a public smoking ban would bring rapid health benefits, but we have been surprised by just how big and how rapid they are,” said John Britton, director of the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies at Nottingham University. Unfortunately the ability of cigarette smoke to trigger heart attacks, even in non-smokers after just short exposures, is less well known than its role in lung disease. Ellen Mason, a senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: “Exposure to cigarette smoke brings fast modifications in blood chemistry, making it much more dispose to coagulating. In someone who has restricted or damaged coronary arteries, smoke exposure can tip the balance and cause a heart attack.” The research into heart attack rates in England is being led by Anna Gilmore of Bath University. “There is already overwhelming evidence that reducing people’s exposure to cigarette smoke reduces hospital admissions due to heart attacks,” she said. Unfortunately this research is not completed. However, the results for Scotland, where public smoking was banned earlier, have shown the benefits. Jill Pell, public health professor at Glasgow University, and her colleagues found also that after the smoking ban the number of people allowed to nine Scottish hospitals because of a heart attack fell 14% among smokers, 19% among former smokers, and 21% for those who had never smoked. And not only in England was found the smoking ban benefits, but also in many other countries. For example last week the Euro Heart meeting in Brussels heard of similar results in Western Europe ofter smoking bans. France had a 15% drop in emergency accesses for heart attacks after a year, while both Italy and Ireland had an 11% reduction.