A recent scientific study concluded that smoking should be stopped completely and not reduced if the person seeks to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.

People who smoke one cigarette a day are still 50 percent more likely to develop heart disease and 30 percent more likely to have a stroke than nonsmokers, according to the study, published in the British Medical Journal.

The researchers stressed that there is no safe level of smoking in relation to these diseases.

But one expert said people who reduce the number of cigarettes have a greater chance of quitting altogether in the end.

'Completely Stop'

Cardiovascular disease, not cancer, is the biggest cause of death from smoking, accounting for about 48 percent of premature deaths related to smoking.

The proportion of adult smokers in the UK has dropped, but the proportion of people who smoke between one cigarette and five cigarettes a day has risen steadily, the researchers said.

The researchers' analysis of 141 studies indicates that smoking 20 cigarettes per day will cause seven heart attacks or strokes in a group of 100 middle-aged people.

If the number of cigarettes is reduced to one cigarette a day, it will continue to cause three heart attacks, the analysis added.

Men who smoked one cigarette a day had a 48 percent higher risk of coronary heart disease and a 25 percent higher risk of stroke than those who never smoked, the researchers said.

For women, the rate rose to 57 percent for heart disease and 31 percent for stroke.

Alan Hackshaw, of the University of London Cancer Institute who oversaw the study, told the BBC: "There is a trend in a number of countries for smokers to reduce the number of cigarettes they smoke, believing it would be fine, Such as cancer. "

"With regard to these two common diseases (heart and stroke), which smokers are more likely to be infected compared to cancer, it is not, and smokers have to quit completely."

The researchers said that fewer cigarettes were expected to reduce damage proportionately, as some studies have shown with lung cancer.

Reducing smoking is not 'useless'

Paul Aviard, a professor of behavioral medicine at Oxford University, said the "well done" study confirmed epidemiologists suspected that light smoking was "a major risk for heart disease and stroke."

But he said it was wrong to think that reducing smoking was not feasible.