Philip Morris
Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Mortality A Detailed Review of Epidemiological Evidence Relating Environmental Tobacco Smoke to the Risk of Cancer, Heart Disease and Other Causes of Death in Adults Who Have Never Smoked - 5 Heart Disease
Fields
- Author
- Lee, P.N.
- Document File
- 2023511660/2023512308/Ets: Heart Disease 930900
- Master ID
- 2023511661/2307
Related Documents:- 2023511661-2307 Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Heart Disease
- 2023511710 the Relationship of Passive Smoking to Various Health Outcomes Among Seventh-Day Adventists in California.
- 2023511714-1718 Passive Smoking and the Risk of Heart Attack or Coronary Death
- 2023511722-1727 Effects of Passive Smoking on Ischemic Heart Disease Mortality of Nonsmokers A Prospective Study
- 2023511728 Erratum
- 2023511729 'effects of Passive Smoking on Ischemic Heart Disease Mortality of Nonsmokers: A Prospective Study'
- 2023511730 the First Author Replies
- 2023511734-1737
- 2023511738-1744 Passive Smoking in Females and Coronary Heart Disease
- 2023511749-1756 Original Contributions Heart Disease Mortality in Nonsmokers Living with Smokers
- 2023511760-1781 Lung Cancer in Japan: Effects of Nutrition and Passive Smoking
- 2023511785-1789 Passive Smoking and Cardiorespiratory Health in A General Population in the West of Scotland
- 2023511790 Passive Smoking and Cardiorespiratory Health in Scotland
- 2023511791-1792 Passive Smoking and Cardiorespiratory Health in Scotland
- 2023511793-1795 Passive Smoking and Cardiorespiratory Health in Scotland
- 2023511800-1802 Public Health Briefs Passive Smoking and 20-Year Cardiovascular Disease Mortality Among Nonsmoking Wives, Evans County, Georgia
- 2023511806-1816 Relationship of Passive Smoking to Risk of Lung Cancer and Other Smoking-Associated Diseases
- 2023511818 Increased Incidence of Heart Attacks in Nonsmoking Women Married to Smokers
- 2023511822-1824 Cvd Epidemiology Newsletter
- 2023511829-1841 Original Contributions Effects of Passive Smoking in the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial
- 2023511842 Re: 'effects of Passive Smoking in the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial'
- 2023511843-1844 Re: 'effects of Passive Smoking in the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial'
- 2023511845 Re: 'effects of Passive Smoking in the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial'
- 2023511846 the Authors Reply
- 2023511849-1853 Smoking As A Risk Factor for Cerebral Ischemia
- 2023511857-1862 Urinary Cotinine Measurement in Patients with Buerger's Disease - Effects of Active and Passive Smoking on the Disease Process
- 2023511865-1881 An Estimate of Adult Mortality in the United States From Passive Smoking
- 2023511882 Editorial Cardiovascular Risks of Environmental Tobacco Smoke
- 2023511883-1887 An Estimate of Adult Mortality in the United States From Passive Smoking: A Response
- 2023511888-1890 An Estimate of Adult Mortality in the United States From Passive Smoking: A Response
- 2023511891-1892 Ischemic Heart Disease: Response to Lee
- 2023511893-1895 Rebuttal to Lee / Katzenstein Commentary on Passive Smoking Risk
- 2023511896-1899 An Estimate of Adult Mortality in the United States From Passive Smoking: A Response
- 2023511900-1906 An Estimate of Adult Mortality in the United States From Passive Smoking: A Response to Criticism
- 2023511908-1911 Deaths From Lung Cancer and Ischemic Heart Disease Due to Passive Smoking in New Zealand
- 2023511912 Deaths From Lung Cancer and Ischemic Heart Disease Due to Passive Smoking in New Zealand
- 2023511913 Passive Smoking in New Zealand
- 2023511914 Passive Smoking in New Zealand
- 2023511915 Passive Smoking in New Zealand
- 2023511916 Passive Smoking and Passive Thinking
- 2023511918-1937 Cardiovascular Diseases and the Work Environment A Critical Review of the Epidemiological Literature on Chemical Factors
- 2023511939-1950 Clinical Progress Series Passive Smoking and Heart Disease Epidemiology, Physiology, and Biochemistry
- 2023511952-1957 Review Passive Smoking and the Risk of Heart Disease
- 2023511958-1961 Aha Medical / Scientific Statement Position Statement Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Cardiovascular Disease A Position Paper From the Council on Cardiopulmonary and Critical Care, American Heart Association
- 2023511965-1983 the Health Consequences of Involuntary Smoking A Report of the Surgeon General
- 2023511985-1998 Environmental Tobacco Smoke Measuring Exposures and Assessing Health Effects
- 2023512000-2015 Environmental Tobacco Smoke Proceedings of the International Symposium at Mcgill University 890000 Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Cardiovascular Disease: A Critique of the Epidemiological Literature and Recommendations for Future Research
- 2023512016-2028 Panel Discussion on Cardiovascular Disease
- 2023512030-2037 Indoor Air Quality and Ventilation Environmental Tobacco Smoke (Ets) and Cardiovascular Disease
- 2023512039-2054 A Critique of the Methods Used to Assess the Toxic Effects on Man of Combustion Products.
- 2023512056-2066 Coronary Heart Disease and Involuntary Smoking
- 2023512068-2077 7. Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Coronary Heart Disease
- 2023512079-2088 Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Coronary Heart Disease
- 2023512090-2091 Editorial Give A Dog-End A Bad Name
- 2023512093-2108 Weaknesses in Recent Risk Assessments of Environmental Tobacco Smoke
- 2023512131-2155 Environmental Tobacco Smoke Exposure and Occupational Heart Disease
- 2023512157-2171 Passive Smoking and Coronary Artery Disease. Biological Plausibility and Severity of Effect
- 2023512173-2180 Carbon Monoxide and Cardiovascular Disease: An Analysis of the Weight of Evidence
- 2023512185-2189 the Effects of Passive Inhalation of Cigarette Smoke on Excercise Performance
- 2023512192-2195 Effect of Passive Smoking on Angina Pectoris
- 2023512199-2202
- 2023512203-2213 Effect of 'passive' Smoking on the Physical Load Tolerance of Coronary Heart Disease Patients
- 2023512216-2220 Indoor Passive Smoking: Its Effect on Cardiac Performance
- 2023512223-2224 Passive Smoking Severely Decreases Platelet Sensitivity to Antiaggregatory Prostaglandins
- 2023512227-2230 Platelet Sensitivity to Prostacyclin in Smokers and Non-Smokers
- 2023512233-2237 Besitzen Passivraucher Ein Erhohtes Thromboserisiko?
- 2023512241-2244 Passive Smoking Affects Endothelium and Platelets
- 2023512247-2253 Lipoprotein and Oxygen Transport Alterations in Passive Smoking Preadolescent Children the Mcv Twin Study
- 2023512256-2257 Abstracts of the 30th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology Children's Hdl-Chol: the Effects of Tobacco: Smoking, Smokeless and Parental Smoking
- 2023512261-2266 Passive Smoking Alters Lipid Profiles in Adolescents
- 2023512269-2274 Serum Lipids & Lipoprotein Profiles of Cigarette Smokers & Passive Smokers
- 2023512278-2279 8th Worldconference on Tobacco or Health Building A Tobacco-Free World 920330 - 920403 Buenos Aires - Argentina Abstracts, Posters and Videos. Serum Lipoproteins in Nonsmokers Chronically Exposed to Tobacco Smoke in the Workplace
- 2023512282 the Association Between Carotid Arterial Wall Thickness and Active and Passive Cigarette Smoking
- 2023512285 Passive Smoking and Carotid Artery Wall Thickness: the Aric Study
- 2023512290-2297 Passive Smoking Increases Experimental Atherosclerosis in Cholesterol-Fed Rabbits
- 2023512300-2301 Supplement to Circulation Abstracts From the 65th Scientific Sessions New Orleans Convention Center New Orleans, Louisiana 921116 - 921119
- 2023512304-2307 Association of Passive Smoking with Increased Coronary Heart Disease Risk Is Not Explained by Elevation of Leucocyte Count
- Site
- R529
- Type
- PSCI, PUBLICATION SCIENTIFIC
- BIBL, BIBLIOGRAPHY
- CHAR, CHART, GRAPH, TABLE, MAPS
- BIBL, BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Named Organization
- Library of Congress
- Area
- SCIENTIFIC AFFAIRS/BLACK LATERAL OLD S&T
- Characteristic
- EXTR, EXTRA
- MISS, MISSING PAGES
- Litigation
- Okag/Privilege Withdrawn
- Okag/Produced
- Date Loaded
- 24 May 1999
- UCSF Legacy ID
- wic02a00
Document Images
5 Heart Disease
Table5.1' Heart disca.sc risk in never smokers in relation to spouse/household smoking
187
Study Sex Cases Relative risk
(95 Ya limits) Factors'
adjusted for
U E
Butler F 20 60 1.05 (0;65-1.70): Age
Garland F 2 17 3.51 (0:80-15.3) None'-
He F 9 25 1.50 See text
Hirayama F 118 376 1. fS (0.94-1.42) - Age of wife
Hole
Gillis et a1.
F
2 19
3.56 (0:83-15.4):
None3
M 18 14 1.30 (0:64.2.64) None3
Hole eral. M+F 30 54 2.01,(1.21-3.35) Age. sex.,class. BP:
Huasble lI
F
27' 49
1.59y0.99-2.57) cho11 BbS7
Age, sex. BP. chol.
Ltt
F
22 55
0:97 (0!56-1.69), BMI
None!i
M 26 15 1.34 (0:64-2:80); None'
Martin F -23- 2.6 None=
Palmer F -?- 1.2 (signifinnce Not known
unknown)
Sandier Il F 437 551i 1.19 (1.04-1.36) Age. schooling.
M 248 122 1.31 (1.05-1.64) housing: maritall
Svendsen
M
8 5
2.23 (0.72-6.92) sutus
Age. BP; chol...-t.
drinks. education
U I- Unexposcd; E - exposed.
' BP - blood aressure; chol - eholesterol;, BMU- body, mass index: wt - wcight..
~ See text_
s Adjustment for age had l'tttle effect, and adjusted 95% Iimits could not be calculated.
'Numbers of cases are approximate, based on age-adjusted rates.
has not been usedL It would be incredibly unstable (estimated 95%
limits, about 0.2-5(90)sinee it is probably impossible to adjust prop-
erly for multiple factors with so few deaths. Mantel [pen. commun.]
has also said that 14.9 was an error, the appropriate value being log,
(14.9) or 2:71!
2
in-_ ~'

198 Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Mortality
Secondly, unadjusted relative risks have been used for the individual
sex results from the Hole study (published in Gillis et al [29]), since
age standarditation had very little effect and relative risks could only
be properly calculated for the unadjusted data.
(v) The relative risk given in the He study [102], a case-control study in
which there was matching omagc, race, place of residence and occupa-
tion, is adjusted for previous and family history of hypertension,
family history of coronan heart disease, amount of exercise, history of
drinking, and hypercholesterolaemia. Confidence limits could not be
calculated, but the relative risk was stated to be significanttp < 0:01),
but this seems not to be true (see section 2'.7:1).
(vi) The results presented in Table 5.1 for the H'irayama study are for
ischaemic heart disease. Hirayama [20] notes that no significant rela-
tionship was seen between spouse smoking and risk of 'other heart
disease' (undefined), base& on 68& deaths, or risk of hypertensive
heart disease, based on 226 deaths. Relative risk estimates were not
provided for these two disease categories.
Table 5.I provides 4 independent relative risk estimates for men and
10 for women; 13 of which.are greater than 1, with 4 of them significant:
both the male and female estimates for the Sandltr IC study, and the female
estimates for the He an& Manin studies. Hole also showed a significantl}
increased relative risk when results for the sexes were combined. Although
an overall estimate of relative risk (as for example calculated by Wells [7])
is probably of little meaning given the extreme variability in study designs
and populations involved, the data in this table - considered without
regard to study design and a variety of other methodological problems -
indicate a weak association between exposure to ETS from the spouse or in
the household and' risk of heart disease.
Five of the l l studies provided some information on risk of coronary,
beam disease and extent of exposure to ETS from the spouse or in the
household (Table 5.2): The Hirayama and He studies both showed evi-
dence of a dose-response relationship; with a significant (p < 0.05) trend
and elevation in risk for women whose husbands smoked 20 or more cig-
arettes a day. The Hole and Svendsen studies also showed the highest riskk
in~the highest exposure groupthough here numbers of deaths were smalli
and' the trend statistic was not significant. In the large Sandler 11 study
there was no evidence of a relationship of risk to ETS exposure in either
sex, risk of heart disease being similar in those classified as exposed to light
or heavy ETS exposure.

5 Heart Disease
189
Table 5.2 Heart disea.cc risk in never, smokers in relation to extent of spousehrousehold smoking
Study Sex Exposure
Hirayattu F Husband:
never smoker
ex-smoker or current
1-19 cigs/day
current 20+ eiYs/day
He F Husband:
never smoked' during marriagc
smoked 1-20 cigs/day
smoked 21+ eigs/day
Hole F Household smokmg
none
low,
high (cohabitant 15+ cigslday)
Sandier !1 Household exposure (tcare)`.
F 0(none)
1-5 (light)
6+ (heavy)
M 0(none)
I-S (light)
6+ (heavy)
Svendsen M- Wife::
did not smoke
smoked 1-19 cigs/day
smoked 20+ cigslday
Cases Relative Factors
risk adjusted for
118 1.00 Age of wife
240 1.08
136 1.30-
` Cases and
9 1.00 eontrols
12 230 matched for
13 6.86 age, race,
+ occupation,
cesidena
3 1.00 Age
14 2.09
16 4.12
437 1.00 Age
252 1.20 schooling,
299 1.27 housing
248 1.00 quality,
56 1.39 marital status
66 1.24
8 1.00 0 None
1 0.90
4 3.21
Information on hean disease in relation to other indices of ETS expo-
sure is fairly sparse. In the Lee study, subjects were classified on a score
rangin,g frorn 0 to 12 according to whether they considered they were
exposed not at all (0), a little (1), average (2), or a lot (3-12), separately for
at home, at work, during travel; and during leisure. No significant relation-
ships were seen,,relative risk estimates for scores 0-1, 2-4 and 5-12 being
1, 0.43 and 0.43 in males (based on 30 deaths), and 1, 0.59 and 0.9 1 in
females (based on 36 deaths):
~a~~Sg :1.22
0
G_'! ~! ~'F

190
Table 5.3 Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Mortality
Effect, of adjiestment for various factors on estimated rel'ative risk of heart disease in never
smokers according to spouse/household smoking
Study Sex Adjustment factors Relative risk
(959b limits)
Butler, F None 1.36 (0.82-215)
Age 1.05 (0.65-1.70)
He F Matching factors (age, race, residence,
occupation) onl)
3.52 (11.43-8.65).
Matching factors.,also previous and
family history of hypertension,
familv history of CHD. exercise,
drinking, hypercholesterolacmia
.50
Hirayama F None 1.00 (0!8'1-1!.23)
Age of wife 1.15 (0;94-1'.42)
Age of husband! 1.15 (0;93-1.41)
Age and occupation of husband 1.16 (0.94-1.43)
Holt F None 3.56 (0:83-1 S:4)
Gillis et aL Age 3.25
M None 1.30 (0.64-2.64)
! Age 1.29
Hole et all M+F Age 1.75 (1.1i0-2:83)
Age, sex, social class. BPchol, BMI 2.01 (1.21-135)
Huntblt If F Age 1.34 (0.84-2.21)
Age, BP, ehot! Bh4I 1.59 (0.99-2.57)
Lee F None 0.97 (0.56-1.69)
Age, marital'status 0.93
M None 1.34 (0.64-`2.80)
Age, marital status 1.24.
Sandler 11 F None 0;66 (0:59-0.75)
Age, housing quality,
schooling, marital status
1.19 (1.04-1.36)
M None 1I.17 (0.95-1.46)
Agehousing quality;
schooling, marital status
1.31 (1.05-1.64)
Svendscn M None 2:12 (0.69-6.46),
Age, BP, chol, wt, diinks/week, education 2:23 (0.72-6.92)1
~...',
BMI - Body mass index; BP - blood pressure; ehol- eholesterolrCH'U - eoronary heart
disese; wt - weight.
~~.
l~'
"-

©
5 Heart Disease
®
191'
In the Svendsen study, a relative risk estimate, adjusted for age andd
wife's smoking status, of 2.6 (p - 0.23; 95% limits, 0,5-12.79 was derived
when men whose co-workers smoked: were compared with men whose co+
workers did not. This result, and that in Table 5.1, was for coronary death.
Svendsen also provided results for the end-point fatal or non-fatal coro-
nary event. Here, relative risk estimates were derived for four categories:
(a) neither: wife nor co-worker smoked, f.0 (base); (b) co-Worker smoked
but not wife, 1.U; (c) wife smoked but not co-worker,-11.2: (d),both wife and
co-worker smoked, 1.7.
No result was significant. In the studti by Butler which, in the
AHSMOG eohortrelated heart disease risk to the number of years lived&
and the number of years worked with a smokcr, some 'suggestion' or 'in-
dication' of an effect was reported in both sexes, but no, detailed results
were reported.
No other study provided information on other indices of exposure. In
the study by He, relative risks of I, 1.83, 3.07 and' 5.49 were reported in
relation to 0, I-10,, 1 1-20: and' 21+ years of ETS exposure, and relative
risks, of I', 1.54, 2:305.07 and 12.67 were reported in relation,to 0; 1-199,
200-399, 400-599 and 600+ cigarette-years of smoking by the husband.
Both, trends were statistically signif cant (p < 0.01).
t,eaving aside the Garland study for reasons noted in~ subsection (iv)
above, 7 studies provided some information on the extent to which adjust-
ment for various risk factors affecte6the estimates of heart disease risk in
relation to spouselhousehold smoking. The results are summarized in.
Tablc 5.3.
Two main conclusions can be drawn from this tabl'e. First. that in
some studies age adjustment made a substantial difference to the relative
risk. This effect, which would depend on the design of the study and on the
frequency of smoking by age and sex in the eountn concerned, is evident
in the Hirayama study and is also probably a contributor to the lgrge asso-
ciation reported in the Sandler II study.
The second main conclusion is that there is no clear effect from addi-
tional adjustment- for the classical coronan risk factors. Thus, while the
Hole, Humble 11 - and perhaps the Svendsen - studies showed some
increase in relative risk after adjustment, the He study showed a substan,
tial' decrease.
Some of the prospective studies cast more light on the possibility of
confounding by various risk factors, since they present data comparing
exposed and non-exposed women at the start of the stud'\. The results are
2023,512224

192 Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Morsality.
Table 5.4 Comparison of heart disease risk facton in tTSexposed and non-FLS-exposed subjeets
Study Sex Risk factor Spouselbousehold Signifi«
exposure nnce
no yes
Sandier 1'J F School gradc(1,2+) (%) 33:8 35.4 p < 0.1
Housing index (&-10), (%) 83,3' 81.1 p < 0.01
M School'.grade (12+) (%) 38.0 43.8 p < 0.01
Housing index ($-I0), (96) 83.8~ 80.4 p < 0.05
Garland F Years of marriage Mean 36.01 34.2 p < 0:1
Systolic blood pressure Mean 140.1 138_2 NS
Obesity index Mean 3.50 3.43 NS
Plasma cholesterol Mean 225.7 226.7 NS
Svendsen M Diastolic blood pressurt Mean 103.1 I'.03:3 NS
Systolic blood pressure Mean 150.8 152.3 NS
Serum cholesterol Mean 264.4 266.0 NS
HDL eholesterol! Mean 42:7 43.4 NS
LDL cholesterol Mean 167.1 166,5 NS
Weight (Ibs) Mean 190.4 194.6 p < 0.05
~ Drinkslweek Mean 7.6 9.7 p < 0.01
Education (years) Mean 14.2 13.8 p - 0.05
lncome (S 000), Mean 22.3 22.1 NS
HDL - High d'ensity lipoprotein; LDL - low density lipoprotein.
summarized in Table 5.4. Significant differences were seen in respect of
weight (ETS-exposed heavier), drinks per week (ETS~exposed drink more),
housing index (ETS-exposed~worse);,and years of ed'ucation (ETS-exposed
more in Sandler 11, less in Svendsen), but is not clear that these differences
were large enough to cause substantial bias. The Chinese case-control study
of He also reported differences in blood fat and apolipoprotein levels
according to ETS exposure, but did not, attempt to adjust for these in the
analysis.
One risk factor which might be relevantbut which was not investi-
gated, was the number of cohabitants. In the Sandier 11 and Hole studies
the index of ETS exposure seemed b.+ its very construction to be correlated
with the number of cohabitants. In particular, the Sandler 11: study would
®

5 Heart Disease
1'93
Table 5,5 Effect of other variables on estimated relative risk of hean, disease in never smokers
aaoording to spnuse smoking
Study Sex VariableJlevel Relative nisk'
(95Y% limits) Factors
adjusted for
Hirayana F Age of wife: None
40-49 0.87 (0.47-1.62).
50-59 L03 (0.72-1.46)
60+ 1.30 :(0.9$- L.73)
Age of husband: Nbne
40-49 1,.34' (0,74-2.42)
50-59 1.25 (0.81-1.92)
6U+ 1,07 (0.83-1.40);
Occupation:
agricultural'worker I
1.32 (0.99-1.74) Age of husband
other 0.99 (0:72-1.35)
Humble Il F Blacks 1.78 (0.86-3.71) Age, BP; chol,,
High social status Whites 1.97 (0.72-5.34) BMI
Low social status Whites 0.79 (0.32-1.96)
BMI - Body mass index; BP - blood pressure; chol - cholesterol:
I For wives whose husband smoked cornpared to t,hose whose husband did not smoke.
have included all people living on their own in the non-exposed group, and
both studies were very likely to include people living in homes with many
occupants in the exposed group. Since household size may correlate with
many facets of disease, it seems to be a statistical error not to adjust for it
in analysis.
Two studies provided some information on variation in relative risk
according to the level of some risk factors. Results are summarized in
Table 5.5, and show how the association with ETS exposure varies by'age
and occupation in the Hirayama study and by race and social, status in
the Humble 11 study. Although the association with spouse smoking is
evident only in agricultural workers in the Hirayama study and only in
Blacks and high social status Whites in the Humble 11 study, there is in
fact no significant heterogeneity between the relative risk estimates in
either study.
~a2;~~1~126

194 Environmental Tobaeao Smoke and Morulily
5.4 Discussion and Conciusions.
Although lung cancer is a rare cause of death in those who have never
smoked, heart disease is not, and it is much easier, to conduct an ade-'
quately large study for heart disease than for lung cancer. Yet there are far
more studies of ETS and lung cancer than of ETS and heart disease. Ut is
striking that so many of the latter studies are based on very smallinumbers
of deaths or cases and/or have not been properly reported in the litera-
ture.
Only 2 studies are sufficiently large to pick up a moderate increase in
risk as statistically significantand neither is satisfactory: Both lack data on
classical heart: disease risk factors, such as blood pressurecholtsterol and
body mass index, and both have a number of problems that have been
referred to in detail earlier. Certainly, neither is a straightforward prospec-
tive study conducted acevrding to acceptable methodology, with collection
of risk factor data at intervals and essentially complete follow-up of
deaths.
Apart from the generdlly unimpressive nature of the studies that have
been oonducted, the other circumstance that stands out is that 13 of the 14
sex-specific estimates of relative risk of heart disease for spouse or house-
hold exposure imTable 5.1 show a positive (though for the most part not
statistically significant) association. !n considering this fact, a number of
points have to be taken into account:
(i) Active smokers have an increased risk of heart disease, as is clear from
numerous epidemiologicalistud'ies. However, the relative risk is much
lower than it is for lung cancer. For example, the 1989 US Surgeon
General's report [711j cites results from the latest American Cancer
Society prospective study showing that, compared with, never smok-
ers, current smokers have relative risks of heart disease of 1.94 in
malesand 1.78 in femalesas compared to relative risks of lung cancer
of 22.36 in males and 11'.94 in females.
Vapour phase components of cigarette smoke have been implicated in
the aetiology of heart disease (rather than particulate phase compo-
nents for lung cancer (1j), and the relative exposure of ETS-cxposed
non-smokers as compared with active smokers is substantially higher
for vapour phase than for particulate phase components, but the low
relative risks for heart disease for active smoking suongly suggest that
if ETS does increase risk of heart disease this increase would be quite
modest. The six estimates of over 1.5 in Table 5.1 seem difficult to

5 Hurt Disease 1955
rtooncile with the dosimetry, especially bearing in mind that active
smokers have very substantialiETS exposure.
(ii) Heart disease is certainly multifactorial, and many of the risk factors
have not been taken into account in many of the studies. Confounding
is therefore a possibility, particularly in the 2 studies (Hole,, Sandler,
Il), where the index of ETS exposure used was likely to be extremely,
strongly correlated with household size. Whilt the evidence discussed'
in Tables 5.3 and 5,4 does not clearly derttonstr;Lte important con-
founding by blood pressurecholesterol or body mass index it is rather
limited and somewhat inconsistent. More evidence is clearly needed
on this important potential source of bias.
(iii) Bias due to misclassilication of active smokiiig status is likely to occur,
but since the increase in risk in relation to active smoking is relatively
so much less for heart disease than for lung cancer, the extent of the
bias will be that much smaller. Since the bias is proportional to the
excess risk (see section 3.4.9), its magnitude will be only 5-1096 of that
illustrated in typical situations for lung cancer.
(iv) Publication bias is one major source of bias that can certainly not be
excluded as relevant. There are two major reasons for believing this
may be an important issue. First, there is a strong tendenc) in
Table 5.1 for the large relative risk estimates to be based on very small,
studies. From, the 13 sex-specific estimates, the rank correlation is
highly significantly (p < 0.05) negative. Who would bother to try to
publish a paper showing no association based on very few deaths?
Sec,ondly,,certain studies that couldipublish findings have not done so.
Of particular importance is the fact that the first American Cancer Society
study of over a million men and' women, which published results for ETS
and lung cancer in 1981, has never published results for ETS and heart
disease. 11 is very likely that no association was found. If this were so; it
would have a very large effect on the results of any meta-analysis (or con-
sequent estimate of heart disease deaths 'due to ETS').
Mainly because of the problems caused by the strong likelihood' of
severe publication bias, it cannot be concluded from the existing evidence
that ETS is associated with heart disease. The present author understands
that the American Cancer Society intends to publish within the next year ~
or so findings related to ETS based on its second large prospective study: lt ~
is hoped that results from its first prospective study will also be released. r~
Until there is such evidence, and hopefully also evidence from other stud- W
ies involving substantial numbers of deaths from heart disease with good ~
~
~
~
~

I
196 Environtnental Tobacco Smoke and Mortality
control of confounding and with evidence on ETS exposure from sources
other than the spouse or in the home, it is certainly premature to comc to
any conclusions.
Note Added in Proof
Since this section was completed. Dobson et al. (166J, reported results from an Australian
easecontrol' study of myocardial infarction and suddcn death.,Among non-smokers there
was no positive relationship of risk to ETS exposure at work in either sex. Nor was therc a
positive relationship of ETS exposure at home in males. In contrast, in femalbs a signifi-
nnt positive relationship of risk was rtported to ETS exposure at home. In this study,
data on smoking habits were collected by completely difierent methods for ea.ses and
oontroas, the potential of bias being underlined by the wide variation in smoking fre-
Quenay reported in controls according to how and where the data were collected. In
addition, virtually no relevant confounding variables were taken into aeeount,.
