Smoking is the abuse of tobacco
It is well known that half of all smokers today, approximately 650 million people will eventually die from smoking. It is equally alarming that hundreds of thousands of people who have never smoked die each year from diseases caused by inhaling the smoke of others.
Thus, smoking also means the health of his entourage, whom one meets every day at work, at home and in public places. Indeed, half of smokers consuming more than 15 cigarettes per day die of tobacco related disease and thousands of passive smokers pass away every year.
Smoking
Smoking is the abuse of tobacco, but all of the physiological and psychological disorders or poisoning caused by the abuse of tobacco. It is now undoubtedly responsible for a significant reduction in lifespan. We re-stated here that in the current state of scientific knowledge, we have only one life...
Some figures...
In the world during the twentieth century, tobacco has killed 100 million people and this number may rise to 1 billion for the XXI century if behaviors do not evolve (OFDT, 2005). Tobacco is currently responsible for the deaths of 10 adults (about 5 million deaths a year). If smoking continues on its current course, it will cause some 10 million deaths annually by 2020 according to WHOM.
In USA, nearly 500 000 people die prematurely each year from diseases related to smoking, according to statements by David Byrne Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection.
In USA, around 66 000 people die each year from tobacco (over 10% of deaths) of which 27 000 per lung cancer (85% were caused by smoking) by the National League against Cancer.
For a smoker in four, the average loss of life expectancy is twenty years and results in death before 65 years, according to a study by the Regional Health Observatory of Ile-de-France.
USA has about 15 million smokers are young people between 20 and 25 who smoke the most (48% of the age by OFDT).
Compared to a non-smoker, the risk of cancer of a smoker is multiplied by:
- 10 for lung and pharynx
- 7 to the pharynx
- 4 for the mouth and esophagus
- 2 for the bladder.
The incidence of lung cancer is proportional to the number of cheap cigarettes smoked per day. This frequency has already increased from 5 cigarettes per day ... Indeed if one smokes 5 x 365 days for 15 to 20 years, this represents tens of thousands of cigarettes.
The development of cancer usually occurs after 15 to 20 years of exposure to tobacco smoke.
Section of a cigarette overview of substances. Smoking causes an average reduction in life:
- 2 to 3 years to 10 cigarettes per day
- 5 to 7 years to 20 cigarettes per day
- 8 to 10 years to 40 cigarettes per day
The main diseases directly related to smoking are:
- Cancer of the trachea, bronchus and lung, also called lung cancer
- Bronchitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
- Cancer of the lips, oral cavity and pharynx, esophagus and larynx.
Tobacco is also a risk factor very important to many diseases: cancer of the stomach, bladder, cervix, cardiovascular disease, increased likelihood of sudden infant death for smokers pregnant...
Thus, there is a worrying increase in the number of lung cancer among smokers under age 40. In France, mortality from lung cancer continues to rise alarmingly, especially below 40 years, especially among women.
Women in USA especially young people, smoke more and more like England and the USA, where the incidence of lung cancer is now the same in women than in men begins to smoke more and more young : 26% from 12-14 years and 58% from 15/16.
Finally, ophthalmologists demonstrated that nicotine is:
- A factor responsible for a decrease in central vision
- A source of early cataract
- A cause of glaucoma.
Each cigarette smoked shortens the life of 11 minutes
According to a study published by The British Medical Journal, smoke each cigarette reduces life by eleven minutes. Researchers at the University of Bristol have reached this result by taking into account in their calculations on the one hand the differences in life expectancy of male smokers and nonsmokers, other recent data on the demographic males and Scottish English. They report having found a difference of 6.5 years in life expectancy between smokers and nonsmokers. Knowing that the average number of cigarettes consumed is estimated at 5772 (slightly less than a pack a day), the authors calculated that if a man smokes from 17 years until his death at age 71 years, it will consume a total of 311,688 cigarettes in his life. A simple calculation allows to determine that each cigarette contributes to shortening the life of 11 minutes. To illustrate their point, these researchers state that smoking a pack of 20 cigarettes, it shorten the life of 3 hours and 40 minutes, equivalent to seeing a "very long movi, two games football, a trip between London and Paris by Eurostar, get coffee, run the London Marathon, having a tantric sexual experience. That is still food for thought...
Surveys Worldwide
In 1952, two British epidemiologists, Doll and Hill, had the idea to interview in hospitals 600 patients with lung cancer and 600 others (the same age and sex) admitted for other diseases. 96% of the first group were or had been smokers, against only 80% in the second group this difference is suspected to first cigarette. Since surveys in all industrialized countries have confirmed the relationship between smoking and cancer.
One of the most famous covers all physicians English (40 000). Mortality from lung cancer was 17 times higher among cigarette smokers than among those who reported not smoking.
In the USA for the first time in 1985, deaths from lung cancer exceeded those from breast cancer in women aged 55 to 74 years.
In England, the proportion of fatal cancers of the bladder caused by smoking increased between 1945 and 1970 among men 50% to 85% and in women from 4% to 27%.
