Exposure to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and can cause coronary heart disease and stroke.
Secondhand smoke causes nearly 34,000 premature deaths from heart disease each year in the United States among nonsmokers.
Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke at home or at work increase their risk of developing heart disease by 25–30%.
Secondhand smoke increases the risk for stroke by 20−30%.
Secondhand smoke exposure causes more than 8,000 deaths from stroke annually.
Breathing secondhand smoke can have immediate adverse effects on your blood and blood vessels, increasing the risk of having a heart attack.
Even brief exposure to secondhand smoke can damage the lining of blood vessels and cause your blood platelets to become stickier. These changes can cause a deadly heart attack.
People who already have heart disease are at especially high risk of suffering adverse effects from breathing secondhand smoke and should take special precautions to avoid even brief exposures.
Secondhand smoke causes more than 7,300 lung cancer deaths among U.S. nonsmokers each year.
Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke are inhaling many of the same cancer-causing substances and poisons as smokers.
Even brief secondhand smoke exposure can damage cells in ways that set the cancer process in motion.
Secondhand Smoke increases the risk of SIDS
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden, unexplained, unexpected death of an infant in the first year of life. SIDS is the leading cause of death in otherwise healthy infants.6 Secondhand smoke increases the risk for SIDS.
Smoking by women during pregnancy increases the risk for SIDS.