Exposure to tobacco smoke, even if you don’t smoke, is linked to an increased risk of suffering from a serious heart rhythm disorder, according to research presented this week at EHRA 2024, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).
The study links passive smoking, even outdoors, with the development of arrhythmias. “The risks of secondhand smoke detected were significant regardless of whether people were at home, outdoors or at work, indicating that exposure universally increases the risk of atrial fibrillation,” said study author Dr. Dr. Kyung-Yeon Lee, Seoul University Hospital, Korea.
Until now, various investigations had established a relationship between passive smoking and CAD, coronary artery disease – which occurs when the arteries that supply blood to the heart muscle harden and narrow -, and also with premature death, but The links between exposure to secondhand smoke and atrial fibrillation, which is what Dr. Lee has analyzed, had not been clearly determined.
To do this, they analyzed a total of 400,493 adults between 40 and 69 years old who had used the National Health Service of the United Kingdom for any reason and who were registered in the Biobank of that country, who did not smoke or suffer from atrial fibrillation at the beginning of the study. They were asked how many hours they had been exposed to other people’s smoke weekly at home and in other settings during the previous year to categorize them as “exposed group” (passive smokers) and “unexposed group.”
21% of the participants were assigned to the first group, with an average exposure of 2.2 hours per week. And, after a follow-up of 12.5 years, they observed that 6% of them had developed atrial fibrillation.
The researchers compared the incidence of atrial fibrillation between passive smokers and non-passive smokers after adjusting for other risk factors such as age, sex, ethnicity, body mass index, daily alcohol consumption, physical activity, diabetes, high blood pressure, blood lipid levels or socioeconomic status. And they found that the first, those exposed to secondhand smoke, had a 6% higher risk of suffering from this heart rhythm disorder.
Furthermore, they explain, they observed that it is a dose-dependent relationship, that is, that the greater the exposure to passive smoking, the greater the risk of suffering from arrhythmia. Thus, for example, the probability of suffering from atrial fibrillation of those who were exposed 7.8 hours a week was 11% higher than that of people who were not exposed to smoke.
Another finding that surprised the researchers is that “passive smoking is harmful not only in closed indoor spaces, but also in outdoor environments,” as Lee explained.
Hence, the doctor stressed, the need to establish policies to further curb smoking in public areas and to facilitate smoking cessation programs.
Precisely the increase in smoke-free spaces, and especially the prohibition of smoking on terraces of bars and restaurants, is one of the measures provided for in the Comprehensive Plan against Smoking 2024-2027 designed by the Ministry of Health.
