People exposed to secondhand cigarette smoke are 82 percent more likely to suffer a stroke than people who aren't exposed to smoke, a new study says.

Researchers at the University of Auckland in New Zealand say their finding means that the real dangers of so-called passive smoking are actually much worse than originally thought. The study, published today in Tobacco Control, a British medical journal, will give more ammunition to those campaigning to have smoking banned in workplaces and public areas. Researchers say the current figures on how much smoking increases the risk of various diseases are dramatically underestimated because nonsmokers are lumped in a single category regardless of their exposure to smoke. That fails to measure the gap between smokers and people whose bodies are really tobacco-free, said Dr. Rodney Jackson, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Auckland and one of the authors of the study.

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