Light smokers heavily at risk of heart attack

[Adul]

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992679

Light smokers heavily at risk of heart attack
00:01 15 August 02 NewScientist.com news service

Women who smoke just three cigarettes a day, and men who smoke six, have double the risk of heart attack, a major Danish study shows. Even people who said they did not inhale had a dramatically increased heart attack risk.

"There is a general idea among smokers that if you keep to a few cigarettes a day or don't inhale it's okay," says Eva Prescott of the Institute of Preventative Medicine in Copenhagen. "Of course it's worse if you inhale and worse the more you smoke, but we've shown there is no safe way of smoking cigarettes," she told New Scientist.

The findings are based on data from more than 12,000 men and women taking part in the Copenhagen City Heart Study, which began in 1976. All participants were aged 20 or over when the study started.

 

[HappyPuppy]

Since this was not a double blind study, at least I didn't see any reference to such, it doesn't prove anything.

 

[Draco]

Originally posted by: HappyPuppy
Since this was not a double blind study, at least I didn't see any reference to such, it doesn't prove anything.

Yeah so SMOKE EM IF YA GOT EM!

 

[HappyPuppy]

I didn't say people should smoke nor do I believe that smoking is safe, I only said that for a scientific study of this sort to be valid it must be double blind.

 

[Bulk Beef]

Women who smoke just three cigarettes a day, and men who smoke six, have double the risk of heart attack

Good thing I smoke a pack a day.

 

[tokamak]

i only smoke when i'm drunk

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

I didn't say people should smoke nor do I believe that smoking is safe, I only said that for a scientific study of this sort to be valid it must be double blind.

You are absolutely wrong.

First there is no way to do a double blind study to study cigarette smoking. There is no substitute 'cigarette' to use as one of the blinds.

Second, double blind studies are only required when the measurement might be effected by the knowledge of whether or not the participant was under the influence of the treatment. In this case, heart attacks were being measured, which are fairly observable events, requiring little inference on the part of the researchers. In fact the heart attack diagnosis was probably done by the participants physician, or the medical examiner, and NOT by the researchers.