Whether it’s their desire or not, the smokers you see huddled together in the parking lot for their 10-minute break are doing their part to make life better for asthma patients. Second-hand smoke is one of the most common triggers for an asthma attack, particularly in children and adolescents.
In addition to worsening symptoms in persons already diagnosed, passive smoking causes as many as 26,000 new cases of asthma every year, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.
[SOURCE: Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, “Asthma overview,” last updated 2005]
For more information about asthma, please visit Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center’s Health Information Library online.