Being a smoker increases the risk of acute myocardial infarction (MI, heart attack) by 2.87x, after age/sex adjustment. (99% confidence limits: 2.58-3.19.) Source is the INTERHEART study, 14820 healthy control subjects and 15152 first-MI patients, published 2004 in Lancet. Basic summary here: http://www.theheart.org/article/155691.do

I'm not sure what your numbers are, since they're all unsourced, but if you're claiming that smoking isn't a sizable risk factor for heart disease, you really should have a sit-down with your personal physician.

There were 450,000 heart attacks in 2004. 20% were "due to smoking". That happens to coincide with how many people smoke in this country. Are you still going to suggest this is the delta? Because mathematically it doesn't add up.

I don't know your source, but I'm guessing that they're saying smoking caused 90,000 heart attacks over and above the baseline (360,000 if no one smoked). Non-smokers have heart attacks at a given rate. Smokers have them more often.

There's nothing remotely odd about that math as presented.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com