The Non-Smokers Blood is Full with Nicotine

According to a study, more than half of all nonsmokers in New York City have raised levels of nicotine in their blood indicating recent exposure to cigarettes smoke.
Researchers found that 56.7 percent of nonsmokers living in the city were found to have elevated levels of the nicotine metabolite cotinine, compared with an average 44.9 percent of nonsmokers nationwide. Among the ethnic groups studied, nonsmokers of Asian descent were most often affected, with 68.7 percent of those examined showing elevated blood levels of cotinine.
The long-term health results of the finding are not known, but secondhand smoke is estimated to account for at least 35,000 deaths from heart disease and 3,000 deaths from lung cancer in nonsmokers nationwide each year.
In general, New York City has fewer smokers per capita than many other American cities. Only 23.3 percent of adults in the city smoked at the time of the study, compared with a national average of 29.7 percent around the same time.
The analysis is based on data collected during a survey of 1,767 adults ages 20 and older in 2004, more than a year after passage of the Smoke Free Air Act of 2002, which banned smoking approximately in all city workplaces, including bars and restaurants.
The study also found that while a higher percentage of New Yorkers appear to be exposed to secondhand smoke, nonsmokers in other parts of the country tend to have higher levels of cotinine if they are exposed at all.
That finding suggests that New Yorkers are breathing cigarette smoke at lower levels but more often, a result of living in a usually dense urban environment.
In New York a nonsmoker can be exposed to second-hand smoke while pass through crowds, or while wait outside doorways, while wait the bus at bus stops, and in many other public places.