LONDON (Reuters) - Being exposed to other people's cigarette smoke dramatically increases the risk of heart disease, researchers in Greece show in recent study published.

The study in the British Medical Association's quarterly specialist journal Tobacco Control suggested banning smoking in the workplace was the best way to protect smokers from giving their non-smoking colleagues heart attacks.

The study found people who never smoked had a 47% higher chance of developing acute heart disease if they were occasionally or regularly exposed to the second-hand smoke puffed out by others.

The risk rose exponentially with the number of years that non-smokers were exposed to other people's smoke.

The scientists looked at 847 Greek men and women with heart disease and 1,078 who did not suffer from it.

Among the heart disease patients, 86% had been exposed to second-hand smoke for more than 30 minutes a day. Among those without heart disease, only 56% had been exposed to smoke.

"The only safe way to protect non-smokers from exposure to cigarette smoke is to eliminate this health hazard from public places and workplaces, as well as from the home," the authors of the study concluded.

Reference Source 89

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