These are all preventable outcomes, meaning that smoking is the most preventable cause of death and disease in the United States today. It is rapidly becoming more significant in less developed countries. Today, there are about 40 million Americans who smoke, but internationally the total is about 1. Mostly these smokers live in the developing world where the percentage of smokers is high and rising. There is, unfortunately, no suggestion that the initiation of smoking is declining, indeed it is still increasing.
Smoking harms women and men equally — It had been thought that women were somehow less affected than men by tobacco smoke. That is simply not true. There is no gender gap.
Once the machine manufacturing of cigarettes began in the early 20th century, men picked up the habit, especially in the aftermath of World War I. For women, smoking was largely considered socially unacceptable at that time. Since it takes 20 to 30 or more years to induce the various smoking-related diseases, men began to develop lung cancer, symptomatic COPD, recognized coronary artery disease and so on only after World War II.
Women only began to smoke regularly after World War II and as manufacturers began to specifically target their advertising to women, with brands like Virginia Slims. However now, the rates of disease are the same for anyone who has smoked many cigarettes per day or packs per day for many years.
Tobacco has more than just nicotine and tar in its smoke. Over 4, chemicals have been detected in smoke and perhaps are proven harmful according to the Centers for Disease Control CDC. Among them are some commonly known chemicals like arsenic, benzene, cadmium, chromium and formaldehyde. Carbon monoxide is also released in tobacco smoke and binds up the hemoglobin in the red blood cells that normally carry oxygen. Carbon monoxide also affects arteries and speeds up the process of coronary artery disease or atherosclerosis.
Nicotine is highly addictive and also has a narrowing effect on arteries including coronary arteries. Secondhand smoke — If it takes heavy smoking for many years to lead to high rates of disease then can secondhand smoke be much of a problem? The answer is definitively and definitely yes. Secondhand smoke is especially dangerous to children who will develop more respiratory infections and many will later progress to the same diseases as direct smokers, albeit in lower numbers.
The result is that, as the NCI reported, nearly 50, people die from coronary artery disease each year as a result of secondhand smoke along with about 3, dying of lung cancer. Terry, M. Public Health Service in This report was aggressively criticized, especially by the tobacco companies and their proxies. Still, it rapidly led to Congress mandating warnings on cigarette packages of the harmful effects of smoking on health and the banning of radio and TV advertising.
More than twenty years later, Dr. Everett Koop, the Surgeon General from to took a strong stance on the health hazards of tobacco. A pediatric surgeon, he had been an active opponent of abortion, speaking against it around the country before his nomination and hence had strong support in the Senate from many conservative senators from the South, including tobacco growing states. But Koop soon made tobacco his top public health enemy.
His early Senate supporters in tobacco states quickly lost their affection for him, but he felt it was a moral responsibility to speak out forcefully.
That is to the good. The bad news is that among those who smoke a large proportion are younger — ages In the past, smoking was prevalent among the more educated, white collar employee. Today it is more prevalent among the less educated, more socioeconomically stressed individual. Not only are rates high and even rising in this group, but so is the amount smoked.
Machine made cigarette consumption declines accounted for most of this change. However, other combustible tobacco products i. Of course, it does not matter what a person smokes — cigarettes, pipe, or cigar — they all release the same toxins into the lungs.
Why this small but increasing switch to these other products? Mostly it has to do with tax law. Manufacturers have therefore relabelled loose roll-your-own tobacco highly taxed like cigarettes as pipe tobacco so as to benefit from lower taxes. The economic realities of smoking do not stop there, either. The cost of smoking-related disease is a significant cost burden on the Gross Domestic Product of the US economy. A quick extrapolation of the statistics from Thun et al and Jha et al would relate that smoking related diseases, associated with just lung, heart and vascular ailments, pose an economic cost burden to the US GDP in the hundreds of billions of dollars, annually.
So, both the humanitarian and financial consequences of smoking and tobacco certainly cannot be overstated. It is well understood that tobacco is addictive and that smoking is easy to start and hard to quit. Many try each year only to go back on. If someone has smoked for a long time, does it make any difference or is it just too late? What value does quitting smoking have, if any in these circumstances? The answer is that quitting is exceptionally valuable and it is never too late to have a meaningful effect.
Those who quit smoking will gain back substantial years of life, with more years gained the sooner one ceases smoking. Stopping between years of age gained 9 years and between years of age the gain was 6 years.
So it is always a good time to quit. Some argue that if they quit they will gain weight and that will make them more susceptible to diabetes mellitus or coronary artery disease. A possibly logical argument, but the data is in — quitting may lead to some weight gain, but it is hardly enough to have a significant or serious impact and so does not — by far — overcome the benefits of smoking cessation. Quitting is difficult. No question. Nevertheless, it is well worth it!
The best approach is to use a combination of techniques all at once. Nicotine patches can help slowly and gently ease one off of the nicotine addiction. Skip directly to site content Skip directly to page options Skip directly to A-Z link.
Section Navigation. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Syndicate. Fast Facts. Minus Related Pages. On This Page. Diseases and Death. For every person who dies because of smoking, at least 30 people live with a serious smoking-related illness.
Smoking causes cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease COPD , which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Smoking also increases risk for tuberculosis, certain eye diseases, and problems of the immune system, including rheumatoid arthritis. Smoking is a known cause of erectile dysfunction in males.
Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death. Worldwide, tobacco use causes more than 7 million deaths per year. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1, deaths every day. This represents about one in every 13 Americans aged 17 years or younger who are alive today. Costs and Expenditures. Smoking costs the United States billions of dollars each year. Price discounts to retailers account for These are discounts paid in order to reduce the price of cigarettes to consumers.
Cigars: Health Effects and Trends external icon. Smoking and Tobacco Control Monograph No. Bethesda MD : U. World Health Organization. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 62 08 ; [accessed Aug 17]. Tobacco Use. Chronic Disease Epidemiology and Control. For Further Information. Fact Sheets. What's this. Related CDC Sites. Social Media. Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website.
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