![\"\"](\"http:\/\/en.bornomalanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Heart-attack4-300x169.jpg\")
Just one cigarette a day carries nearly\u00a0half the risk for heart attack and stroke as smoking a full pack of 20,\u00a0according to a large-scale study published Thursday.<\/p>\nJust one cigarette a day carries nearly\u00a0half the risk for heart attack and stroke as smoking a full pack of 20,\u00a0according to a large-scale study published Thursday.<\/p>\n
“If someone smokes one cigarette instead of 20 per day, intuitively we'd\u00a0think that the risk drops to 1\/20, or five percent,” said lead author Allan\u00a0Hackshaw, a professor at University College London, whose paper analysed 141\u00a0previous studies.<\/p>\n
“This seems to be the case for lung cancer, but is not true for heart\u00a0attacks and stroke, where one cigarette per day carries around 50 percent of\u00a0the risk of a pack a day,” he told AFP. Smokers should not be fooled, in\u00a0other words, into thinking that a few cigarettes a day — or even just one —\u00a0carries little or no long term harm, he added.<\/p>\n
“Whilst it is great that smokers try to cut down — and they should be\u00a0positively encouraged to do so — in order to get the big benefits on
\ncardiovascular disease they need to quit completely,” he said by email.<\/p>\n
The findings were published in the medical journal BMJ.<\/p>\n
Tobacco kills about seven million people worldwide every year, according to\u00a0the World Health Organization.<\/p>\n
About two million of those deaths are due to cardiovascular disease, mainly\u00a0coronary heart attacks and stroke. Earlier research suggested that smoking a\u00a0few cigarettes a day was linked to a higher-than-expected risk of heart\u00a0disease, but findings were inconclusive.<\/p>\n
– Risk higher than expected –<\/p>\n
To probe deeper, a team of scientists led by Hackshaw analysed the results\u00a0of 141 studies, estimating the relative risk of one, five or 20 cigarettes a\u00a0day.<\/p>\n
They found that men who lit up once a day had 46 percent of the excess risk\u00a0of heart disease associated with smoking a full pack a day, much higher than\u00a0expected. For strokes, the excess risk was 41 percent.<\/p>\n
For reasons that are not fully understood, the risk for women was somewhat\u00a0smaller — 31 and 34 percent, respectively.<\/p>\n
“It could be a mixture of biological difference and differences in\u00a0lifestyle,” said Hackshaw.<\/p>\n
Overall, long-term smoking shortens life expectancy by 12-15 years.<\/p>\n
“This well conducted study confirms what epidemiologists have suspected but\u00a0few among the public have,” commented University of Oxford professor Paul\u00a0Aveyard, who was not involved in the research.<\/p>\n
“The implication is obvious — anyone who smokes should stop.”<\/p>\n
At the same time, he added, it would be wrong to conclude that cutting down\u00a0is useless.<\/p>\n
“There is more reason to believe that lower cigarette consumption will\u00a0reduce the risk of chronic lung disease and lung cancer, the other two big\u00a0causes of early death from smoking,” he said via Britain's Science Media\u00a0Centre.AFP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just one cigarette a day carries nearly\u00a0half the risk for heart attack and stroke as smoking a full pack of 20,\u00a0according to a large-scale study published Thursday. “If someone smokes one cigarette instead of 20 per day, intuitively we’d\u00a0think that the risk drops to 1\/20, or five percent,” said lead author Allan\u00a0Hackshaw, a professor at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":40575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\t\n