REVIEW ER 'S CONCLUSIONS Quitting smoking is associated with a substantial reduction in risk of all-cause mortality among patients with CHD .
This 36 % risk reduction appears substantial compared with other secondary preventive therapies such as cholesterol lowering which have received greater attention in recent years .
The risk reduction associated with quitting smoking seems consistent regardless of differences between the studies in terms of index cardiac events , age , sex , country , and time period .
BACKGROUND Although the importance of smoking as a risk factor for coronary heart disease is beyond doubt , the speed and magnitude of risk reduction when a smoker with coronary heart disease quits are still subjects of debate .
OBJECTIVES To estimate the magnitude of risk reduction when a patient with CHD stops smoking .
GIVING UP SMOKING AND THE RISK OF HEART ATTACKS: A report from The British Regional Heart Study
In a prospect i ve study of 7735 middle-aged men , both current and ex-cigarette-smokers had a risk of a major IHD event , within an average 6.2 years of screening , more than twice that in men who had never smoked cigarettes ; men who had given up smoking more than 20 years ago still had an increased risk . This excess risk among ex-smokers is only to a small extent explained by their higher blood pressure , serum total cholesterol , and body-mass index . An increased prevalence of IHD in men who had recently given up smoking also made a small contribution to excess risk . In both current and former cigarette smokers , the number of years a man had smoked cigarettes ( " smoking-years " ) was the clearest indicator of IHD risk due to cigarettes . The major benefit of giving up smoking may lie in halting the accumulation of smoking years
REVIEW ER 'S CONCLUSIONS Quitting smoking is associated with a substantial reduction in risk of all-cause mortality among patients with CHD .
This 36 % risk reduction appears substantial compared with other secondary preventive therapies such as cholesterol lowering which have received greater attention in recent years .
The risk reduction associated with quitting smoking seems consistent regardless of differences between the studies in terms of index cardiac events , age , sex , country , and time period .
BACKGROUND Although the importance of smoking as a risk factor for coronary heart disease is beyond doubt , the speed and magnitude of risk reduction when a smoker with coronary heart disease quits are still subjects of debate .
OBJECTIVES To estimate the magnitude of risk reduction when a patient with CHD stops smoking .