Are you a passive smoker?

Despite regulations against smoking public places, over 40% of adults are exposed to passive smoking or secondhand smoking.

Women are more prone to secondhand smoking at home or work, which is equally dangerous as smoking, first hand. According to a study done in India, in 2015, 39% of women are prone to passive smoking at home and 19% at workplace. 

Secondhand smoke is the combination of smoke from the burning end of a cigarette and the smoke breathed out by smokers. It contains more than 7,000 chemicals. Hundreds are toxic and about 70 can cause cancer. It is better to leave the vicinity when somebody smokes as there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.

Smoking and even secondhand smoking during pregnancy results in more than 1,000 infant deaths annually. Some of the health conditions caused by secondhand smoke in adults include coronary heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer.

Here is a lowdown on the several risks from secondhand smoking.

Cardiovascular Disease:    
Exposure to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and can cause coronary heart disease and stroke.

• Secondhand smoke causes nearly 34,000 premature deaths from heart disease each year in the United States alone, among nonsmokers.
• Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke at home or at work increase their risk of developing heart disease by 25–30%.
• Secondhand smoke increases the risk for stroke by 20−30%.
• Secondhand smoke exposure causes more than 8,000 deaths from stroke annually.
• Breathing secondhand smoke can have immediate adverse effects on your blood and blood vessels, increasing the risk of having a heart attack.
• Breathing secondhand smoke interferes with the normal functioning of the heart, blood, and vascular systems in ways that increase the risk of having a heart attack.
• Even brief exposure to secondhand smoke can damage the lining of blood vessels and cause your blood platelets to become stickier. These changes can cause a deadly heart attack.

Lung Cancer
Secondhand smoke causes lung cancer in adults who have never smoked.

• Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke at home or at work increase their risk of developing lung cancer by 20–30%.
• Secondhand smoke causes more than 7,300 lung cancer deaths among US nonsmokers each year.
• Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke are inhaling many of the same cancer-causing substances and poisons as smokers.
• Even brief secondhand smoke exposure can damage cells in ways that set the cancer process in motion.
• As with active smoking, the longer the duration and the higher the level of exposure to secondhand smoke, the greater the risk of developing lung cancer.

Source: www.cdc.gov