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Heart attack risk

among smokers

diminishes with age

LONDON: Smokers are five times as likely to suffer heart attacks in their 30s and 40s than nonsmokers, according to a study released on Friday.

Doctors have long known that several decades of smoking increases the likelihood of heart attacks in older people. The new study shows tobacco can wreak havoc much sooner, triggering heart attacks before age 50.

"Those who get addicted in their teen-age years are the ones who have the highest risk of having an early heart attack, said Richard Peto, one of the investigators at Oxford University.

Peto has published several studies, highlighting smoking's ill effects. The latest, to be published in Saturday's British medical journal, will be presented on Monday at a European Cardiology meeting in Amsterdam.

Mitchell Zeller, Special Assistant for Policy at the Food and Drug Administration in Rockville, Maryland, called the study "very significant" especially in light of FDA proposals announced last week, calling for more stringent regulation of cigarette sales and advertising aimed at teens.

"I think most people associated the lung cancer and emphysema and cardiovascular disease with smoking but think it takes place much later in life Zeller said.

Oxford investigators surveyed 13,926 heart attack survivors in Britian and 32,389 of their relatives. Most smokers, said Peto, smoked 10 to 30 cigarettes daily.

Among people between the ages of 30 to 49, the risk of heart attacks among smokers was five times higher than that of nonsmokers, researchers found. Smokers between 50 and 59 tripled their risk and those between 60 and 79 doubled their risk.

The increased risk is greatest among the youngest category not because cigarettes are more harmful at that age but because heart attacks are so rare among young people.-APP