Secondhand Smoke in Restaurants Raises Risk of Cancers, Asthma

Secondhand smoke in bars and restaurants can increase risk of asthma and cancers in visitors, a new study has found.

Smoking causes many types of cancers of lung, bladder, kidneys, mouth and ovaries. Previous research has established that second-hand smoke could just be as dangerous.

Secondhand smoke contains more than 50 substances that can cause cancer, according to Medline Plus.  Passive smoke can cause lung cancer, nasal sinus cancer, respiratory tract infections and heart disease. Second-hand smoking causes about 600,000 deaths each year.

The present study was based on data from 65 bars and restaurants in Minnesota in 2007. Researchers found that chance of smoking or people visiting only non-smoking areas of the restaurants was about 18 in a million while it was about 80 in a million for people who frequented the smoking area of bars or restaurants.

Further addition to the study's incidence showed that excess risk for secondhand smokers would result in an additional 214 lung cancer deaths and 3,001 additional heart disease deaths each year, according to a news release.

"One in a million is significant. You can't control people smoking, but to support tobacco-free policies we need to know how to protect people," Lara Gundel from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who worked on the study, said.

Another study published in the journal Circulation found that ban on smoking in places like restaurants, bars and workplaces, led to a decrease of 15 percent in the rate of hospitalizations due to heart attacks. Smoking ban in public places are also tied with fewer preterm births.

The current study found that secondhand smoke was linked with over 1,400 new cases of asthma in waiters of the U.S. restaurants.

"There are huge economic impacts related to smoking," Gundel added, according to a news release. "It's worth it to society to try to minimize the damage from smoking."

The present study was led by led by Ruiling Liu and Katharine Hammond from UC Berkeley's School of Public Health and is published in the journal Tobacco Control.