A Minnesota county reduced heart attacks by 33%. Was it due to a county weight loss campaign? A “Let’s Move” push? A trans-fat ban?
Nope.
The research, carried out by scientists at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., found a 33 percent drop in heart attack rates in one Minnesota county after public smoking bans were enacted. [The study] examined medical data in Olmsted County, which has a population of about 144,000, over two periods: the 18 months before the county banned smoking in restaurants in 2002, and the 18 months after it extended the ban to bars and all workplaces in 2007. Dr. Hurt and his colleagues found that while rates of hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol and obesity remained constant or increased after the bans, the incidence of heart attacks dropped sharply.
Source: The New York Times
Decrease indoor air pollution and suddenly there’s fewer heart attacks!! It’s like pollution affects health or something!!
I was considering posting this too! People in Olmstead County, MN got fatter as the heart attack rate dropped. Pretty well deflates the doomsayers and the flocks of public health types who want to shift anti0tobacco money to anti-obesity.
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