What is secondhand smoke?
• Secondhand smoke is a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe, or cigar, and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers.
• This mixture contains more than 4,000 substances, more than 40 of which are known to cause cancer in humans or animals and many of which are strong irritants.
• Secondhand smoke is also called environmental tobacco smoke (ETS); exposure to secondhand smoke is called involuntary smoking, or passive smoking. Passive smoking artery damage partially heals Damage to the lining of arteries of young adults caused by passive smoking partially heals 2 years after the exposure to smoke, but the artery lining is still not as healthy as the arteries of people who had never beenexposed to smoke. 60 young adults, all nonsmokers, between the ages of 15 and 39 were used as essential data for further analysis. Twenty had never been exposed to tobacco smoke at home or in the workplace for any amount of time. Another group of 20 had been passively exposed for at least 1 hour per day for 2 or more years. A third group of 20 had been exposed to smoke at home, work, or both for at least 1 hour per day for 2 years. The researchers found that dilation of the blood vessels was much better in former passive smokers than in current passive smokers, although both groups were impaired compared with nonsmoking controls. Not surprisingly, former passive smokers who had been away from smoky environments longer had better arterial function than those who had been exposed to passive smoking as recently as 2 years prior to the study. "Passive smoking has been consistently linked to an increased risk for coronary heart disease and may be responsible for more than 30 cardiovascular deaths annually in the US alone," the researchers note. Secondhand smoke is a serious health risk to children. The developing lungs of young children are also affected by exposure to secondhand smoke.