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Southern Cross Health Features

Welcome to our online health and healthy lifestyle magazine. This information is necessarily of a general nature. You should always seek specific medical advice for treatment appropriate to you.

Where there’s smoke, there’s danger!

Don’t be fooled into thinking you’re “safe” because you’re just a social smoker.

Scientists in Denmark have found that very light smokers, even those who don’t inhale, significantly increase their risk of heart attacks by smoking as little as three cigarettes a day for women, and six for men.

You’re also putting others around you at risk. A scientific working group of 29 experts from 12 countries, convened by the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), has officially declared secondhand smoke carcinogenic to humans.

Even at typical levels of exposure, passive smoking has been shown to cause lung cancer among non-smokers. For more information on the dangers of smoking, check out the ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) website www.ash.org.nz. If you’d like help to kick the habit, phone the QUITLINE on 0800 778 778.