Wednesday, November 5, 2003

Heart, arteries also suffer from second-hand smoke

Stop heart attacks (and other preventable diseases), not smoking! That is all our current Board of Health smoking proposal does or is meant to do. The 58 percent drop in the heart attack rate in Helena, Montana within the 6-month period of their indoor smoking ban, (which then went back up when the state legislature overturned it) shows that it works. Now you need to understand why it works. Not only does tobacco smoke clog arteries, it delivers the knock-out punch that sets off the stroke or heart attack. By making your blood “sticky,” tobacco smoke initiates the logjam, the block that causes the stroke, heart attack and, too often, death. My blood thinner’s commercial shows how the now “sticky” platelets stick to the plaque built up in the artery initiating the blood flow block and potential death. I had no symptoms, no risk factors, no reason for anyone to look for this problem in me. Mine was caught by luck (because a long-term medical study chose this year to study carotid arteries). My cholesterol is perfect; this is a smoker’s disease and what the tar and nicotine in second-hand smoke silently did within me. But it was my avoidance of indoor smoke (because of my previous second-hand smoke throat cancer) that may have protected me from a stroke in a long undetected clogged artery. This is the second “smoker’s time bomb” that I have survived with surgery. I have no idea how many more lie silently within me or within you. Indoor smoking bans only stop dangerous indoor smoke, not smoking. But they save lives. Let this one save yours.

Kathie Cheney

Peachtree City, Ga.