Today, a few newspapers reported that the smoking ban had been successful and the success has been measured in terms of reducing the number of heart attacks.
The biggest surprise in this announcement is how much decline there has been in heart attacks since the ban. It was originally expected that there would be a decrease by 10% in heart attacks but in fact heart attacks decreased by nearly a 1/3 since the ban.

Hence my rule number 1 : If you are a smoker, the single biggest thing you can do to avoid a heart attack is to give up, which could also protect the heart health of friends and family.

Heart attacks in the UK alone affect an estimated 275,000 people and kill 146,000 each year.

Big impact!
On reason for this surprise may well be second hand smoking : Second-hand smoke is thought to increase the chances of a heart attack by making the blood more prone to clotting, reducing levels of beneficial “good” cholesterol, and raising the risk of dangerous heart rhythms. The scientists leading the study found that heart attack rates across Europe and North America started to drop immediately following implementation of anti-smoking laws, reaching 17% after one year, then continuing to decline over time, with a 36% drop three years after enacting the restrictions.

Overall these findings give us evidence that in the short-to-medium-term, smoking bans will prevent a lot of heart attacks.

Another interesting piece of news was that the Latest figures show at least 70,000 lives have been saved by NHS Stop Smoking Services in the 10 years since they were established in England.

Go smoke free ! If you feel you can’t at least try e-cigarettes