While more than 45 years we know that smoking is harmful to health, just 20 years ago began to alert the public that involuntary exposure to ETS or passive smoking is a risk factor for several diseases. In our country recently that is becoming aware of these risks despite the fact that in 1986 the report of the Surgeon General of the United States found that passive smoking is a preventable cause of illness and death.
The report of the Surgeon General of the United States in 2006 reviewed the 1986 report and focuses on recent research findings on the effects of ETS on health. This report shows that exposure to ETS has serious health implications for everyone exposed, whether smokers or not.
Exposure to environmental smoke snuff can cause immediate or long-term effects.
Immediate effects include irritation of the eyes, nose, throat and lungs, headache, nausea and dizziness.
In the long term , involuntary exposure to ETS is associated with respiratory complications, various cancers, mainly lung and cardiovascular disease.
ETS exposure increases the risk by 20-30% of lung cancer and coronary heart disease in nonsmokers.
A recent study analyzed data from 22 studies conducted in various countries around the world on the risk of lung cancer associated with passive smoking at work (more than 4300 cases). The results show a 24% increase in risk of lung cancer in exposed workers. The risk is proportional to the amount of smoke inspired and duration of exposure. Mainly affected are the waiters, who in their working hours have exposure to smoke from four to six times greater than that of other workers, and workers in bingos and casinos.
In some people, passive smoking starts from the moment of conception and continues throughout childhood with all the risks involved. The mother passes the carbon monoxide and nicotine into the bloodstream of the fetus, reducing oxygen supply and accelerating your heart rate. For this, the children of smoking mothers are more likely to be underweight than children of nonsmoking mothers. In turn, the children of mothers who smoke have double the risk of sudden death syndrome in infants (main cause of death in the first year of life) than children of nonsmokers.
One published study shows that children of mothers who smoked during pregnancy were 2.74 times more likely to be smokers than those whose mothers smoked during pregnancy.
Passive smoking is particularly dangerous in children since they breathe faster than adults and they breathe in more harmful chemicals per kilogram of weight. Children exposed to ETS during childhood are chronic cough, decreased lung capacity, more episodes of asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia and otitis.
Recent studies also show that exposure to ETS during pregnancy is associated with some congenital malformations (cleft lip and cleft palate). Nicotine passes into breast milk. Children of smokers have a higher frequency of caries, food allergies, skin problems and increased frequency of cancer in adulthood. They also have more frequent behavioral problems, hyperactivity syndrome, attention deficit and lower school performance. On the other hand, are six times more to school than children of nonsmokers and go to the doctor more often.
A recently published study indicates that exposure to ETS in childhood increases 4 times the risk of lung cancer in adulthood. Another study shows that children and adolescents exposed to snuff smoke are 38% more likely to develop bladder cancer as they grow.
