According to the U.S. Surgeon General, cigarette smoking leads to 21 deadly diseases. However, a report recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine reveals that the dangerous habit may be more even deadly than previously realized.
For years, the Surgeon General’s office has linked smoking to a wide range of diseases, including 10 different types of cancer, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes and more. But when researchers from the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute and several universities categorized the cause of death for more than a million people they had been tracking for 10 years, they identified other causes of death that occurred more often in smokers than nonsmokers. As a result, the group determined that cigarette smoking is actually connected to these 13 additional causes of death.
- All infections
- All other respiratory diseases
- Breast cancer
- Cancers of unknown site
- Essential hypertension
- Hypertensive heart disease
- Kidney failure
- Liver cirrhosis
- Prostate cancer
- Rare cancers
- Additional rare causes combined
- All other digestive diseases
- Unknown causes
Study author Eric Jacobs, strategic director of pharmacoepidemiology at the American Cancer Society, is quick to point out that their research does not prove that smoking directly caused these diseases. Instead, the study simply identified an association between cigarette smoking and the additional 13 health risks.
According to National Public Radio, about 437,000 people die each year from the 21 diseases the Surgeon General attributes to cigarette smoking. When deaths from the 13 new causes are included, smoking-related deaths claim about 500,000 lives annually.
Ready to Quit?
In 2011, the most recent year from which data is available, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that almost 70 percent of adults who smoke wanted to stop smoking, and about 43 percent of smokers made at least one attempt at quitting in the past year. If you want to stop smoking, resources are available to help.
The needs of every quitting smoker are different. Some people will need medications or nicotine replacement products to help ease them away from cigarettes, while others will depend on individual or group counseling to quit the habit. Others will be able to quit “cold turkey” after they establish a quit date and throw away the cigarettes.
Resources are available locally to help. Texas Health Physicians Group physicians can provide the medical guidance you need, and Texas Health Resources offers a four-week Freedom from Smoking Program and smoking cessation information at many of its facilities. For additional resources, you can visit yesquit.org or call the Texas Quit line at 1-877-YES-QUIT to receive counseling, support and information.