Smoking Diseases - The List Just Got Longer

by Tim Tailor

A concern for smoking diseases is the top leading reason why people who smoke consider quitting smoking. One of the first disease to be linked to smoking is lung cancer. Even during the world wars people had established a link between smoking and lung cancer. This is why during this time is found one of the first recorded anti-smoking campaigns in Germany which were subsequently crushed by the Americans through continued cigarette smuggling.

Statistically smoking kills as many as 440 000 people every year in the United States through smoking related diseases. In China as many as 700 000 people die from smoking disease and conditions and this number is estimated by the UN to grow to millions if nothing drastic is done in China concerning tobacco regulation and smoking laws in general.

In the last few decades scientists and doctors have had their hands firmly placed on a smoking diseases list that has been communicated to the general public to warn on the dangers of smoking. This list of diseases from smoking and already linked to smoking for many years is as follows;

• Cancer of the bladder
• Esophagus cancer
• Larynx cancer
• Lung Cancer
• Cancer of the mouth
• Throat cancer
• Chronic lung disease
• Chronic heart and cardiovascular disease
• Reproductive or conception problems

In recent years there has been yet a new set of smoking diseases that has been added to the above list.The United States alone spends up to $75 billion on an annual basis treating diseases caused by smoking. With the discovery of these new diseases the quoted amount is likely to increase as previously misplaced expenditures are accounted for under smoking related expenses. In the UK the government through the British National Health Services (NHS) spends a total of $200 billion on everything tobacco related from smoking

treatment to stop smoking campaigns. It is a smoking disease fact that loss to economic productivity is as high as $82 billion per year in America. Smokers have been shown to have the highest cost of smoking rate in the economy due to absenteeism.

A number of diseases related to smoking that were not previously attributable to smoking and that have made the smoking and disease longer are listed as follows;

• Pancreas Cancer
• Kidney Cancer
• Stomach Cancer
• Cervical Cancer
• Acute myeloid leukemia
• Abdominal aortic aneurysm
• Cataracts
• Periodontitis
• Pneumonia

Evidence currently at hand fails to confirm if smoking causes colorectal cancer, liver cancer, prostate cancer or erectile dysfunction. The relationship between smoking and these diseases has been discussed and even suggested in some circles. The American Surgeon General has not confirmed the said relationship. However, evidence seem to point to the fact that smoking may not in itself cause women breast cancer but that dependent on individual genetics some particular women might increase their risk of breast cancer by smoking. This however is not uniform across all smoking women.

Due to all these smoking diseases and conditions related to smoking and the general assault on a smokers body over many years, smokers die 13 to 14 years younger than non-smokers. In fact it has been suggested that each cigarette smoked takes away 3 months of life from each smoking individual. Due to a shorter life span of smoking individuals, some researchers have concluded that life wise smokers are overall cheaper to take care of than non-smokers because they die earlier and younger eliminating the costly task of taking care of the elderly.

SOURCES:

• http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5077308/
• http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4545

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