Irish Heart Foundation Issues Wake-Up Call To 'Social Smokers'

On Ash Wednesday, Ireland's National No Smoking Day, 5th March, the Irish Heart Foundation has issued a wake-up call to 'social smokers' that they can triple their risk of heart disease if they continue smoking.

The latest health warning follows new research in the UK by their counterparts at the British Heart Foundation which found that part-time smokers are in denial about putting their lives on the line, with only a quarter concerned that their addiction may be harmful to their health.

The Irish Heart Foundation believes the same attitudes exist among social smokers in Ireland and that there is complacency among this group of smokers that a heart attack or stroke, 'won't happen to them'. The national charity fighting heart disease and stroke is on a mission to cut through smoke-screens and myths to make it clear that there is no such thing as safe smoking.

Dr Angie Brown, Medical Director of the Irish Heart Foundation said: "One million people are smokers in Ireland and a quarter of these are regarded as occasional or social smokers consuming one to five cigarettes per day. There is a common misperception that smoking occasionally or smoking a lesser amount than regular or heavy smokers, carries little or no risk.

"This is not true and today is about dispelling those myths to say that if you smoke one to five cigarettes a day you are putting yourself at high risk of heart attack and stroke."

Dr Brown continued: "Smoking is even more harmful for women because women metabolise nicotine a lot faster than men. In fact women who smoke are nearly twice as likely to have a heart attack as women who don't smoke. Women's arteries are also smaller than in men and when combined with nicotine consumption, which causes blood vessels to narrow, women are at greater risk of blockages or vascular complications."

(CD/JP)