Light smokers’ wake-up call

AS few as five cigarettes a day doubles the risk of smokers dying from a heart attack and stroke, a world-first Australian study of 190,000 people has found.

For the first time, Australian National University researchers established smokers have triple the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and double the risk of a heart attack, a stroke or heart failure compared with nonsmokers.

Smokers are five times more likely to develop peripheral cardiovascular diseases like gangrene, according to the most in-depth study in the world tracking both smokers and nonsmokers over seven years.

About 6000 — 17 a day — Australians die each year from preventable smoking-related cardiovascular illnesses.

However, if Australia’s 2.7 million smokers quit by the age of 45, they can cut cardiovascular risks by 90 per cent.

“It is a wake-up call for the Australian community,” lead researcher Emily Banks, from the ANU National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, said.

There is “nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Smoking causes terrible harm across the board”, Professor Banks said.

“If a smoker has a heart attack or a stroke, it is more likely than not that it was caused by smoking.”

The findings, which have been acclaimed internationally, will be used to inform industry and government policy makers, including Quit and the Heart Foundation.

The ANU researchers investigated “the risk of heart attack, stroke, heart failure, heart muscle disease, rhythm problems, and gangrene in Australians from every walk of life: men, women, city, country, rich, poor”, Prof Banks said.

“Our study shows that a population almost twice the size of Port Douglas is being wiped out in Australia each year — with smoking causing more than 6400 cardiovascular deaths, including from heart attack and stroke,” she said.

The study found smoking also causes 11,400 coronary heart hospitalisations a year — 31 per day.

Heart Foundation CEO John Kelly said the new evidence was disturbing and urged the government to maintain tobacco control as a high priority.

Dr Sarah White, director of Quit Victoria, said the study “reinforces how important it is to prioritise quitting”.

“Quitting at any age provides a whole host of health and other benefits and quitting by age 45 avoids about 90 per cent of the cardiovascular risks of smoking,” she said.

Dr White said the findings were a wake-up call for light or social smokers.

Figures from Quit Victoria show one in 10 Victorians smoke, with men aged 30 to 49 the biggest single group.