Smoking ban is cutting heart attack risk

The smoking ban in the UK has helped prevent more heart attacks than experts first thought according to new data.

Two studies have reported that smoking bans have cut the number of heart attacks in Europe and North America by up to a third.

This is a far greater reduction than both countries had anticipated and far outstrips the 10% figure recently quoted by England's Department of Health.

Earlier this month it was announced that heart attack rates fell by about 10% in England in the year after the ban on smoking in public places was introduced in July 2007 - which is more than originally anticipated.

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

And it is not just those who smoke who have cut down or been encouraged to give up by the ban. Passive smokers are also less at risk from a heart attack since the ban.

A representative from the British Heart Foundation told the BBC: "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."

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