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metabolic health, were also higher among those who had been exposed to secondhand smoke.
“I would not have expected to see such dramatic effects with these low exposures,” Braxton D. Mitchell, the study’s senior author and a professor of medicine, epidemiology and public health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said in a prepared statement.
The researchers assigned each person a point for every nuclear family member who was a smoker, and the women with more family members who smoked had poorer metabolic health markers overall.
Men who were nonsmokers but who had been exposed to secondhand smoke also were more likely to be heavier, have higher LDL cholesterol and have higher fasting glucose readings. Reed found a reduction in lung function of about 2.7 percent for women who had been exposed to secondhand smoke.
Some 480,000 Americans die each year from smoking-related causes, with about 41,000 of those suffering from lung cancer and coronary heart disease related to secondhand smoke exposure, according to a 2014 report by the Office of the Surgeon General. Previous studies have established stroke, lung cancer and coronary heart disease as associated with secondhand smoke exposure.
Some 58 million people in the United States were exposed to secondhand smoke in 2012, the latest year for which data is available, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although that number has been cut in half since 2000. Exposure was higher for children, black people, renters and those living in poverty.
“Although we know the dangers, there still are many people who are not protected from smoke,” said Brian King, deputy director of research translation for the CDC. “The finding from this study and other studies reinforce that secondhand smoke is bad, there’s no safe level of exposure and that even brief exposure can have immediate adverse impacts on your health.”
The surgeon general’s current report on secondhand smoke “expresses some doubt as to whether certain things like lung function is worse in relation to secondhand smoke exposure,” according to Reed, the lead researcher.
“I think our study adds some clarity to that question,” he said, “because we did find a small but detectible reduction in lung function.”
Kirsten Koehler, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the study’s findings, while not groundbreaking, added to the body of knowledge about the harmful effects of secondhand smoke.
“I don’t know that it added much that was that new, but it added a group of understudied people,” Koehler said. “It contributes to the evidence base for what we know about secondhand smoke.”
But Mark Geraci, the chair of medicine at Indiana University, said many people aren’t aware of how dangerous secondhand smoke is and that more research like Reed’s is needed to quantify it.
“I think most people would argue that smoking is bad for you, but actual data on secondhand smoke is still evolving,” Geraci said. “There are many individuals and groups that aren’t sure what the detrimental effects of secondhand smoke are. It’s difficult to quantify exposure to secondhand smoke. I think that is an area where there’s a tremendous need for experimentation.”