Demonstrating the potent effects of exposure to cigarette smoke on nonsmokers, a study from Scotland had found that nonsmokers accounted for most of a reduction in heart-disease hospitalizations that occurred after the country banned smoking in public places, the Wall Street Journal reported July 31.

According to Jill Pell, a University of Glasgow professor who led the study, nonsmokers experienced a 20 percent reduction in hospital admissions in the year after Scotland banned smoking in public places. For smokers, the reduction in hospital admissions in that period was 14 percent.

For hospital admissions related to heart attack and acute coronary problems, nonsmokers accounted for two-thirds of an overall 17 percent reduction in the numbers a year after the ban was imposed in March 2006.

"There has long been a claim from smokers that they are affecting their own bodies, and why should the public care?" commented study observer David Cohen, director of cardiovascular research at Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo. "This shows that the public should absolutely care … that is an incredibly powerful finding."

In a departure from previous studies on this subject, researchers used blood and saliva samples from hospitalized patients to examine the presence of cotinine, a product of nicotine metabolism. They found that nonsmokers with heart disease had higher levels of cotinine than do members of the general population, but these levels had dropped from pre-ban levels seen before March 2006.

Comprehensive bans on smoking in public places remain controversial in the U.S., with 14 states now having laws on the books that resemble Scotland's. According to the group Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, more than 60 percent of the U.S. population is covered by some type of state or local smoking ban.

Study results were published in the July 31 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.