Health Risks of Smoking

Health risks of smoking

Because of their nicotine addiction, many smokers find it difficult to cease smoking despite their knowledge of ill health effects.

The health effects of tobacco smoking are related to direct tobacco smoking, as well as passive smoking, inhalation of environmental or secondhand tobacco smoke. A 50 year study of over thirty-thousand British physicians showed that nonsmokers lived about 10 years longer than smokers. For those born between 1920 and 1929 the standardized mortality rate between the ages of 35 and 69 for nonsmokers was 15% and for smokers was 45% —nearly three times as great. Claims that personalities of smokers account for these differences are not convincing in light of the fact that the heavy smokers were about 25 times more likely to die of lung cancer or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease than the nonsmokers.. Smoking is responsible for 87% of lung cancer deaths.

The main health risks in tobacco pertain to diseases of the cardiovascular system, in particular smoking being a major risk factor for a myocardial infarction (heart attack), diseases of the respiratory tract such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and emphysema, and cancer, particularly lung cancer and cancers of the larynx and tongue. Prior to World War I, lung cancer was considered to be a rare disease, which most physicians would never see during their career. With the postwar rise in popularity of cigarette smoking, however, came a virtual epidemic of lung cancer.

A person's increased risk of contracting disease is directly proportional to the length of time that a person continues to smoke as well as the amount smoked. However, if someone stops smoking, then these chances gradually decrease as the damage to their body is repaired. A year after quitting, the risk of contracting disease is half that of a smoker.

The health risks of smoking are not uniform across all smokers. Risks vary according to amount of cigarettes smoked, with those who smoke more cigarettes at greater risk. Light smoking is a health risk. According to the Canadian Lung Association, tobacco kills between 40,000–45,000 Canadians per year, more than the total number of deaths from AIDS, traffic accidents, suicide, murder, fires and accidental poisoning. The United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes tobacco use as "the single most important preventable risk to human health in developed countries and an important cause of premature death worldwide".