The ban on smoking in public places could turn out to be one of the most effective health policies introduced in the UK
Jump to full article: Times Of London (uk), 2009-09-27
Author: Professor John Britton
Intro: What is the explanation for this reduction? First some sober facts. Smoking still kills around 100,000 people in the UK each year. Lung cancer remains the biggest killer, but in close second and third place come heart disease, and the combination of chronic bronchitis and emphysema now referred to as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Stopping smoking at any age reduces the risk of dying from all of these conditions, but usually reductions in numbers of hospital admissions and deaths for lung cancer and COPD take years to materialise.
For heart disease, however the picture is very different. This is because when non-smokers inhale cigarette smoke it has a rapid and powerful impact on the blood clotting mechanisms involved in triggering heart attacks. What's more these effects reverse within days after smoke exposure stops.
What this means is that avoiding tobacco smoke cuts the risk of a heart attack almost immediately - and it is this that has led to the marked reductions in hospital admissions and deaths.
The ban has also helped many smokers to give up their habit. . . .
The health benefits and NHS costs saved are vast; indeed, one of the lasting legacies of the present UK government is that it has done more to tackle smoking than any other in history, making the UK a world leader in tobacco control.
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