Source: theheart.org (ca)
Date: 2010-06-21
Author: Michael O\\\'Riordan

Smoking, particularly the effects of secondhand smoke in
nonsmokers, took center stage at the World Congress of Cardiology
(WCC) 2010 last week, with experts calling on cardiologists to
play a pivotal role in getting their patients to quit smoking and
to reduce smoking in their communities.

"As a cardiologist who actively sees patients, one of the most
important things I can do is tell them to stop smoking," Dr
Sidney Smith (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) told the
media during the WCC meeting last week. "It is arguably the major
risk factor in the world right now, and if you wanted to do
something to really make things better on this planet, you\\\'d get
rid of smoking and tobacco use."

Smith, the president-elect and chair of the World Heart
Federation scientific advisory board, said the new National
Institutes of Health (NIH) cardiovascular risk-reduction
guidelines, of which he is a chair, will stress the importance of
smoking cessation. "I want to be very clear where I stand on the
importance of smoking cessation and tobacco use and the danger
not only to the person who is smoking; [there is] also a very
important risk in secondhand smoke."

if you wanted to do something to really make things better on
this planet, you\\\'d get rid of smoking and tobacco use. . . .


Throughout the WCC conference, numerous sessions highlighted the
impact of smoking and secondhand smoke on the global risk of
cardiovascular disease. Dr Judith MacKay (University of Hong
Kong), a policy advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO),
stressed that coronary heart disease is an enormous burden in
Asia, particularly in China. As documented throughout the
meeting, there has been a large shift in the occurrence of
cardiovascular disease in the past 50 years, with approximately
60% of the burden lying in low- and middle-income countries. In
China alone, estimates suggest that more than three million
people die annually from cardiovascular disease.

In even scarier news, MacKay noted that health professionals,
despite knowing better, continue to smoke themselves. . . .

Most vital, however, in the global campaign against smoking is
article 8 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
(FCTC), . . .

Presenting during a WCC session on the need to enhance the impact
of smoke-free policies to reduce cardiovascular disease, Dr
Armando Peruga (World Health Organization) pointed out that 43%
of teenagers 13 years old to 15 years old are still living at
home with smokers. Europe is the worst offender