Women Catch Up On Male Smoking-Based Mortality Rate

You’ve come a long way baby. Or not, as women’s smoking deaths are at all-time highs in the U.S.

We already know that cigarettes can contain more than 4,000 ingredients, which, when burned, can also produce ‘compound’ chemicals. Urea, a chemical compound that is a major component in urine, is used to add “flavor” to cigarettes. Cigarettes contain arsenic, formaldehyde, lead, hydrogen cyanide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, ammonia and 43 known carcinogens. Many of these ‘compounds’ have been directly linked to lung and heart damage, which we discussed in a previous article, “Breaking Unhealthy Heart Habits”.

The nicotine content in several major brands is reportedly on the rise. Harvard University and the Massachusetts Health Department revealed that between 1997 and 2005 the amount of nicotine in Camel, Newport, and Doral cigarettes may have increased by as much as 11 percent. There is a bigger effort by companies and government to try and decrease the amount of people smoking. There are many ways a person can quit smoking, including getting into vaping from sites like https://www.gourmeteliquid.co.uk. There have been great developments in the vaping industry which now produces a big range of products to see everyone’s needs, for example the da vinci iq vape.

The United States is the only major cigarette market in the world in which the percentage of women smoking cigarettes (22%) comes even remotely close to the number of men who smoke (35%).

In the early 1950s, Kent cigarettes used crocidolite asbestos as part of the filter, a known active carcinogen and one of the most dangerous forms of asbestos.

Then in 1970, President Nixon signed the law that placed warning labels on cigarettes and banned television advertisements for cigarettes. The last date that cigarette ads were permitted on TV was extended by a day, from December 31, 1970 to January 1, 1971 to allow the television networks one last cash windfall from cigarette advertising in the New Year’s Day football games.

U.S. cigarette manufacturers now make more money selling cigarettes to countries around the globe than they do selling to Americans, as American brands Marlboro, Kool, Camel and Kent own roughly 70% of the global cigarette market.

Now American women who smoke have a dramatically increased risk of death from lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) than they did 20 years ago.

Compared to women who have never smoked, a female smoker’s risk of death from lung cancer is almost 26 times higher now. In the 1980s it was about 13 times higher, and in the 1960s a female smoker’s risk of death was only three times higher than a female nonsmoker’s, according to new American Cancer Society research.

This greater risk of death is likely because of women starting smoking earlier, smoking more each day and smoking for longer periods of time, said the study’s lead author, Dr. Michael Thun, vice president emeritus at the American Cancer Society.

Women have finally caught up to men and now have comparable risks of death compared to non-smokers. Male smokers face a 25 times higher risk of death from lung cancer than non-smoking males. In the 1980s, that number was 24 times higher and in the 1960s, it was 12 times higher.

Deaths from smoking-related diseases have also risen in recent decades. The risk of dying from COPD, a group of respiratory diseases including emphysema, is 26 times higher for male smokers today and 22 times higher for women compared to those who have never smoked. Results of the study are published in the Jan. 24 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Steven Schroeder, author of an accompanying journal editorial agreed, and said that smoking has become an “invisible problem.”

“The money we should be spending on tobacco control isn’t there,” Schroeder said. “People afflicted with smoking tend to be invisible at policy levels. The less-educated, the poor, those with mental illness, they don’t vote. And, there are no advocacy groups for smokers. Tobacco cessation programs require public funds, and no one is clamoring for them.”

The bright side to this disturbing news is that smoking cessation works. When people quit smoking, their health improves dramatically and their risk of dying decreases. Of course trying to quit is one almighty battle. That is why some prefer to try switching to vape, where there is an array of flavours to choose from. E juice NZ is one place that can help smokers make the change over to vapes.

A second study in the same journal issue found that lifetime smokers lose an average of about 10 years of life compared to people who never smoked. But, that same study found that people who quit between the ages of 25 and 34 gain an average of 10 years of life compared to those who continue to smoke. Even if you quit at 55 to 64, you still reap an extra four years, according to the study. The study suggests that while any amount of smoking can damage your health, quitting by age 40 can almost entirely mitigate the effect smoking has on your length of life.

Source(s)

I. www.nejm.org
II. www.lung.org
III. People Who Quit Smoking By 40 May Live As Long As People Who Never Smoked

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