Passive smoking associated with adult asthma
Finnish researchers have shown that passive smoking
plays a role in the development of adult asthma.
Dr Maritta Jaakkola, of the Finnish Institute of
Occupational Health in Helsinki, and colleagues studied 718 subjects,
of whom 231 had been diagnosed with asthma in the previous two and a half
years. None of the subjects had ever smoked.
The researchers found that subjects exposed to tobacco
smoke in the workplace were 2.16 times more likely to develop asthma than
those who were not exposed, and that subjects whose partners smoked were
4.77 times more at risk of developing the disease than those whose partners
did not.
The results of the study were presented at the 11th
European Respiratory Society Congress in Berlin this week.
In another study, a survey of 1,757 smokers and
ex-smokers commissioned by the SCAPE (smoking cessation in primary care)
taskforce has shown that women are unaware of the impact that smoking
has on both their own and their children’s health. Half of the female
smokers questioned in the survey wanted to stop smoking because they were
worried about the risks to their health, but only 10 per cent were concerned
about the effects of smoking on their children’s health or during pregnancy.
The SCAPE taskforce says that this lack of concern could be attributed
to ignorance, since 67 per cent of the women questioned did not believe
that smoking put them at greater risk of miscarriage during pregnancy
and 63 per cent did not realise that smoking was a risk factor for cot
death.
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The results of the survey are published in a report
entitled “Fatal attraction — lifting the smokescreen”,
which can be obtained by telephoning 0845 300 3636
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