| If you're not a smoker, stay away from those who do | | | | passive smoking - is a mixture of the smoke given off |
| because smokers aren't the only ones being harmed | | | | by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe or cigar and the |
| by their habit. | | | | smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers. Tobacco |
| According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), | | | | smoke lingers in the air hours after cigarettes have |
| lung cancer is the worst cancer killer in America, taking | | | | been extinguished and it is involuntarily inhaled by |
| more lives each year than breast, prostate and | | | | nonsmokers. |
| colorectal cancers combined. ACS statistics show that | | | | Secondhand smoke is a known cause of lung cancer, |
| an estimated 160,440 Americans die each year from | | | | heart disease, chronic lung ailments such as bronchitis |
| lung cancer, accounting for 28 percent of all cancer | | | | and asthma (particularly in children), and low |
| deaths. Over 173,000 new cases of lung cancer are | | | | birth-weight births. Even a half hour of secondhand |
| diagnosed each year, accounting for 13 percent of | | | | smoke exposure causes heart damage similar to that |
| new cancer cases. | | | | of habitual smokers. Nonsmokers' heart arteries |
| When people get lung cancer, people say, 'Did you | | | | showed a reduced ability to dilate, diminishing the ability |
| smoke?' Well, the problem is about 10 percent of men | | | | of the heart to get life-giving blood. |
| and over 20 percent of women with lung cancer | | | | In addition, the same half hour of secondhand smoke |
| never lit a cigar. Why among that group, women are | | | | exposure activates blood platelets, which can initiate |
| two to three times more likely than men to get the | | | | the process of atherosclerosis (blockage of the heart's |
| disease, doctors don't know yet. Hormones, diet, air | | | | arteries) that leads to heart attacks. These effects |
| pollution and especially second-hand smoke, all are | | | | explain other research showing that nonsmokers |
| believed to be important factors. | | | | regularly exposed to SHS suffer death or morbidity |
| Secondhand smoke (SHS) - also referred to as | | | | rates 30% higher than those of unexposed |
| involuntary smoking, environmental tobacco smoke, or | | | | nonsmokers. |