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JUST ONE CIGARETTE a day carries nearly half the risk for heart attack and stroke as smoking a full pack of 20, according to a large-scale study.
“If someone smokes one cigarette instead of 20 per day, intuitively we’d think that the risk drops to 1/20, or 5%,” said lead author Allan Hackshaw, a professor at University College London, whose paper analysed 141 previous studies.
“This seems to be the case for lung cancer, but is not true for heart attacks and stroke, where one cigarette per day carries around 50% of the risk of a pack a day,” he told AFP.
Smokers should not be fooled, in other words, into thinking that a few cigarettes a day – or even just one – carries little or no long-term harm, he added.
“Whilst it is great that smokers try to cut down – and they should be positively encouraged to do so – in order to get the big benefits on cardiovascular disease they need to quit completely,” he said by email.
The findings were published in the medical journal BMJ.
Tobacco kills about seven million people worldwide every year, according to the World Health Organization.
About two million of those deaths are due to cardiovascular disease, mainly coronary heart attacks and stroke.
Earlier research suggested that smoking a few cigarettes a day was linked to a higher-than-expected risk of heart disease, but findings were inconclusive.
Risk higher than expected
To probe deeper, a team of scientists led by Hackshaw analysed the results of 141 studies, estimating the relative risk of one, five or 20 cigarettes a day.
They found that men who lit up once a day had 46% of the excess risk of heart disease associated with smoking a full pack a day, much higher than expected. For strokes, the excess risk was 41%.
For reasons that are not fully understood, the risk for women was somewhat smaller – 31 and 34%, respectively.
“It could be a mixture of biological difference and differences in lifestyle,” said Hackshaw.
Overall, long-term smoking shortens life expectancy by 12-15 years.
“This well conducted study confirms what epidemiologists have suspected but few among the public have,” commented University of Oxford professor Paul Aveyard, who was not involved in the research.
The implication is obvious – anyone who smokes should stop.
At the same time, he added, it would be wrong to conclude that cutting down is useless.
“There is more reason to believe that lower cigarette consumption will reduce the risk of chronic lung disease and lung cancer, the other two big causes of early death from smoking,” he said via Britain’s Science Media Centre.
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Party based voting is a perversion of the democratic process. It should be illegal to force a TD to vote a certain way. They are supposed to represent their constituents views.
They are elected on a party platform as opposed to their own views. Therefore its reasonable to assume that most people voting for them are also voting on the party platform. It would then be wrong for them to suddenly decide that they don’t want to represent that platform. If that’s what they want they should go as an independent before the electorate.
There’s nothing wrong with party based voting, per se. It’s party based speaking time in the Dáil that’s the problem. The smaller your party, the less time you have to speak. If you’re an independent, you’re screwed unless you put together a technical group.
Is the catholic church or the government running this country ?
Or in other words ‘Is the catholic church or the government RUINING this country?
We have no idea how much the catholic church runs the government. Any politician that is catholic could face excommunication on these matters. Thats the gun being held to their head.Do we really want to live in a state run by an organisation without credibilty. This is a fight to the death for the catholic church. They see their power slipping away.
Since all the Sunday collections have nearly stopped the Fs (FG/FF) have directed larger amounts of tax payers money into church controlled charities (Ruhama, Immigrants Council of Ireland…).
Those charities in turn use their citizen paid PR departments to push church policy from an ‘independent’ advocacy position. The local TD gets to cut the ribbon at the next charity event, they get elected for ‘doing good for the community’ (non-church groups don’t have a chance) with the aid of the few votes the church can muster.
The whip ensures that there is no free vote and the church/government policy/finance/vote loop is closed.
There should be no obfuscation or waffling on this matter. We need to legislate with safeguards for all. Its a disgrace that we have, after all this time, exported our problems abroad as if it never happens. Typically Irish solution to an Irish problem, stick our heads in the sand and hope it goes away. We need “Savita” legislation now.
We need to legislate with safeguards for all…………………what in all that’s holy could this mean?
Meanwhile over 4,000 women still travel to the UK, it’s really time we face the reality instead of continuing to stick our heads in a sandbox
Another insult to our intelligence by the masters, Fine Gael. They haven’t the nerve to vote as a party on the matter after Savitas death,so are hoping to weasel around it with a free vote.
Don’t believe me? Where was Shatter calling for a free vote back in April on the same matter?
“an insult to our intelligence”…….mmmmmmm?
Has the Dáil ever had a free vote recently, it must be one of the world’s most whipped parliaments.
Any TD who votes no is blocking the democratic will of the people. No TD should even countenance voting no.
In terms of abortion in general, I don’t think parties should have policies other than a commitment to hold referenda or not. That said, every candidate should state the way they would vote on such matters before the election.
Dame Edna has said NO.
A free vote for all TDs is essential. Otherwise we will have a dictatorship headed by Dictator Enda!
Some say that the Supreme Court decision on the X case is probably incorrect and unconstitutional. If true why has the Expert Committee of Advisers not recommended a review of the X case before recommending legislation.FG gave a or election commitment that it would NOT legislate for abortion.It is now doing so. FG has adopted the policies of the Labour Party on abortion. If the government do not reassess its position FG will be wiped out at the next election. Remember the VAT on children’s shoes! Sad!
have your say