When we think of the dangers of smoking, generally most people’s minds automatically go to lung cancer. Perhaps a few think of heart disease, after a prolonged campaign of billboard and television ads to remind us of the link between the two. However US researchers have shown that smoking is in fact linked to a shocking 70% of cancers in men, making lung disease only one of a myriad of fatal illnesses male smokers could develop.
The team of researchers, from the University of California in Massachusetts, analysed the cancer-related deaths of men living in the state in 2003. He compared the rates of lung-cancer deaths to all other cancer mortality rates and found that since 1979 to 2003, the two had changed year-by-year at exactly the same rates. The very close relationship between lung and other cancer death rates lead the scientists to the conclusion that there was a single cause linking them - smoking. If the findings are correct, this suggests that were smoking rates to decrease, this would have a far greater impact on mortality than previously expected.
The lead scientist on the research team, Bruce Leistikow, is a public-health expert with a special research interest in premature mortality. He said, ‘he fact that lung and non-lung cancer death rates are almost perfectly associated means that smokers and non-smokers alike should do what they can to avoid tobacco smoke. It also suggests that increased attention should be paid to smoking prevention in health care reforms and health promotion campaigns.’