Living with smokers ups death risk: study

Stuff.co.nz ^ | 05 April 2004 | NZPA

[yonif]

Adults who have never smoked but who live with smokers have a 15 per cent higher risk of death than those living in a smoke-free household, a new Otago University study says.

That is the risk even after taking into account age differences, ethnicity, marital status and socio-economic position, according to study author Sarah Hill.

The study, led by Dr Hill and conducted by the University of Otago's Wellington School of Medicine and Health Sciences, is to be published today by the British Medical Journal.

"The findings were conclusive – adults who had never smoked and who lived with smokers had about a 15 per cent higher risk of death, than those living in a smoke-free household," Dr Hill said in a statement.

"This result was consistent with previous studies in this area, but what makes it truly significant is that it is more precisely measured than ever before, due to its being based on a large study."

The research used New Zealand census data for all adult respondents who had never smoked and were aged 45-74 at the time of either the 1981 or 1996 censuses.

Smoking status data was available for all household members aged 15 and over, and death rates were monitored for three years after the two censuses.

"Those who had never smoked but who were living in households with one or more current smokers, were regarded as being exposed to second-hand smoke in the home," Dr Hill said.

"Those living in households with no current smokers were regarded as not exposed."

Tony Blakely, co-author and principal investigator of the New Zealand Census-Mortality Study, said the new findings added to the weight of evidence of harm caused by second-hand smoking.

It emphasised the importance of "hard-hitting" television commercials being launched at Parliament on Wednesday, he said.

The commercials urged parents to protect their children from second-hand smoke by either quitting or smoking outside.

The estimated number of deaths caused by second-hand smoking in New Zealand is around 347 a year.

The figures show that for both sexes, and in both 1981-84 and 1996-99, never smokers living in households with one or more smokers have higher death rates than never smokers living in smoke free households.

[keithtoo]

This lame article doesn't even say 'death from what and when?'. A 15% higher chance of death? No one in my house smokes but we all have a 100% chance of death.

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[Eala]

Adults who have never smoked but who live with smokers have a 15 per cent higher risk of death than those living in a smoke-free household, a new Otago University study says.

Amazing. And here I thought that all of the living had a 100% risk of death (at least until the Rapture). Hm. What are they not telling us????

[Quix]

Thanks.

It won't sway any minds who are determined to indulge in their addiction. But it is another brick of light in a dark, smoke filled room.

[marktwain]

I'd like to see how they Analise the data, and how many deaths confer the 15 percent difference before I'd be convinced, especially since this flies in the face of several other large studies.

What did they die of is an extremely cogent question. If they had more automobile accidents, or committed suicide more frequently, I would not be convinced that it was the effect of second hand smoke.

Death by accidental fire would be a middle case.

[DefCon]

What a stupid study.
Census data and surveys are unscientific.
They are full of lies for insurance, vanity, and other purposes.
Unfortunately, many will just accept their ruesults as fact.
- - - - -
"...The research used New Zealand census data for all adult respondents who had never smoked and were aged 45-74 at the time of either the 1981 or 1996 censuses..."
-
"...Smoking status data was available for all household members aged 15 and over, and death rates were monitored for three years after the two censuses..."

[FourPeas]

No one in my house smokes but we all have a 100% chance of death.

That was my first thought. Barring Christ's return in my lifetime, I'm gonna die regardless of whether I smoke. Apparently this is news in New Zealand.

[Grassontop]

I always beleived that a person should not live to see a nursing home. They don't treat you well at these places and besides, I'd rather die of smoking than I would of real old age anyway! Its terrible to see an old person have to suffer and being a baby again in diapers just don't appeal to me no how! Grassontop

[uglybiker]

Studies have been shown to be a leading cause of statistics.

[coloradan]

This study is unscientific, but the criticisms lodged by many on the thread are without merit. Yes, everyone has a 100% risk of death, and smoking does not increase this probability. What the study claims is, however, made clear in the following quote: "Smoking status data was available for all household members aged 15 and over, and death rates were monitored for three years after the two censuses."

The death rate increases by 15% for those who live with smokers, compared with those who do not, over the three-year period following the census. If one's risk of death is 1 death per 100,000 people per year living with non-smokers, then according to this study, one's risk of death would be 1.15 per year per 100,000 people. That's all.

However, the study fails in many ways.

• By not including the cause of death, the connection to smoking is shaky. Car accidents?
• Error bars are not included - what if one's probability of death was 1.0 +/- .6 per year per 100,000 people in non-smoking households, and 1.15 +/- .6 per year per 100,000 people in smoking households - presto! the effect is smaller than the error bars, and might be statistically insignificant. This is, in fact, the case with the WHO study that found a similar effect for the health detriment of secondhand smoke (SHS) - the effect was well below statistical significance.
• The study takes many things into effect, but not everything. "Even after taking into account age differences, ethnicity, marital status and socio-economic position," still leaves diet and exercise differences, for example. This is the problem of the uncontrolled variable.
• The study also fails to distinguish between correlation and causation. It might be that people who smoke have a genetic tendency towards addiction, and this tendency also is responsible for a very slight increase in death rate, and non-smoking family members share the genetic trait. This may be far fetched, but it can't be excluded based on this article.
• Finally, the study is intended to make you conclude smoking is bad, even if you don't smoke yourself. And this might, in fact, be true. But what it will be used for (undoubtedly!!) is to push legislation that bans smoking in some or all public places, or in some or all private places. As bad as SHS might be, this study does not make the case that legislation that bans smoking is beneficial. (For an analogy, guns might indeed be used for murders, but laws banning guns affirmatively does not reduce murder rates.) It does not even attempt to make this case. Laws that prohibit common activities anger people, cost money to enforce and create black markets, among other things.
  • angry people increase murder rates (for example, in NYC a bouncer was murdered over a smoking ban),
  • enforcement costs money that could have been better used elsewhere, for health care or quitting programs, for example, or simply not taken from people in the first place, making them richer - and poverty increases death rates too.
  • black markets are criminal enterprises that can lead to violent crime and hence higher death rates.

  This study certainly fails to even attempt to account for these effects, and they will become issues if, in fact, any prohibitions result from people citing this study.

• Even if we were to grant that living with smokers all the time does increase one's risk of death some small amount, the case is not made that exposure to SHS at the hour-a-day or hour-a-week levels are proportionally as harmful, or even harmful at all. It might even be beneficial, look up "hormesis." (For example, alcoholism certainly increases death rates, but this does not say that the best amount of alcohol is none - a glass of red wine a day increases life expectancy both by its beneficial antioxidant content, and by keeping one's liver in shape without killing it.) A study that compared death rates of non-drinkers who lived with alcoholics vs. those that didn't would certainly find a hazard to living with alcoholics, and probably far more so than than non-smokers living with smokers, but if one banned alcohol based on this, one would miss the red wine effect altogether, to say nothing of the gang violence, the ascendency of the Kennedy family into politics via corruption, and the expansion of federal power that did result from alcohol prohibition - namely, the BATFE and the first federal gun control law, NFA'34.

By the way, I'm a non-smoker and don't like cigarette smoke, but I really can't stand junk science, and especially people using junk science to expand the nanny state.

I'm bumping the War On Drugs list for reference of the proto-war-on-tobacco, coming soon to a country near you, and because the same arguments apply to other drugs that were made here for tobacco.

[MissTargets]

Its terrible to see an old person have to suffer.

After seeing my Dad in a nursing home for less than five days, I agree. He had broken his hip, had surgery, but never really recovered.
He was 88 years old when he passed two weeks ago. If smoking knocks off 5-15 years off your life, those are the worst ones.

[coloradan]

As a followup to this post, the very next day the following article appeared: Study: Lesbian & Bisexual Girls at Heightened Risk for Tobacco Use . If gay women are slightly more inclined to smoke, then non-smokering gay women might be slightly more inclined to room with smokers, in which case the detrimental health effects of being lesbian come out as appearing to be the result of SHS. The article does not allow one to exclude this hypothesis as the explanation for the perceived effect.

[Grassontop]

If smoking knocks off 5-15 years off your life, those are the worst ones.

I sometimes think the medical profession likes to see old people in homes so they can make money off of them and thats my opinion! Grassontop