Non-smoker heart attacks down after ban - UPI

After an Indiana county smoking ban was implemented, heart attack hospital admissions dropped 70 percent for non-smokers -- but not for smokers, a study found.

Lead author Dong-Chul Seo of the Indiana University Bloomington examined the effect of public smoking bans on heart attacks in non-smokers. He analyzed Delaware County, which had no smoking bans during the study period, and Monroe County, which prohibited smoking in restaurants, bars, retail spaces and workplaces.

The study, published in the Journal of Drug Education, exposure to secondhand smoke for just 30 minutes can rapidly increase a person's risk for heart attack, even if they have no risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol or previous heart surgery...