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Smoking down, but tobacco use still a major cause of death, disease - WHO

By Stephanie Nebehay

 

FILE PHOTO: An illustration picture shows cigarettes in their pack, October 8, 2014. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann/Illustration

 

GENEVA (Reuters) - Fewer people are smoking worldwide, especially women, but only one country in eight is on track to meet a target of reducing tobacco use significantly by 2025, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.

 

Three million people die prematurely each year due to tobacco use that causes cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and stroke, the world's leading killers, it said, marking World No Tobacco Day. They include 890,000 deaths through second-hand smoke exposure.

 

The WHO clinched a landmark treaty in 2005, now ratified by 180 countries, that calls for a ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship, and taxes to discourage use.

 

"The worldwide prevalence of tobacco smoking has decreased from 27 percent in 2000 to 20 percent in 2016, so progress has been made," Douglas Bettcher, director of the WHO's prevention of noncommunicable diseases department, told a news briefing.

 

Launching the WHO's global report on trends in prevalence of tobacco smoking, he said that industrialised countries are making faster progress than developing countries.

 

"One of the major factors impeding low- and middle-income countries certainly is countries face resistance by a tobacco industry who wishes to replace clients who die by freely marketing their products and keeping prices affordable for young people," he added.

 

Progress in kicking the habit is uneven, with the Americas the only region set to meet the target of a 30 percent reduction in tobacco use by 2025 compared to 2010, for both men and women, the WHO said.

 

However, the United States is currently not on track, bogged down by litigation over warnings on cigarette packaging and lags in taxation, said Vinayak Prasad of the WHO's tobacco control unit.

 

Parts of Western Europe have reached a "standstill", particularly due to a failure to get women to stop smoking, African men are lagging, and tobacco use in the Middle East is actually set to increase, the WHO said.

 

Overall, tobacco kills more than 7 million a year and many people know that it increases the risk of cancer, the WHO said.

 

But many tobacco users in China and India are unaware of their increased risk of developing heart disease and stroke, making it urgent to step up awareness campaigns, it said.

 

"The percentage of adults who do not believe smoking causes stroke are for example in China as high as 73 percent, for heart attacks 61 percent of adults in China are not aware that smoking increases the risk," Bettcher said. "We aim to close this gap."

 

China and India have the highest numbers of smokers worldwide, accounting for 307 million and 106 million, respectively, of the world's 1.1 billion adult smokers, followed by Indonesia with 74 million, WHO figures show. India also has 200 million of the world's 367 million smokeless tobacco users.

 

(Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-05-31

[anon7867763]

How about ban vaping so people keep smoking ? Now there's an idea !

[mommysboy]

Why on earth WHO isn't behind vaping I'll never know. It's efficacy and comparative safety has been established. Meanwhile, millions are condemned to a needless future of chronic ill health and perhaps premature death. 

 

 

Edited May 31, 2018 by mommysboy

[Moonmoon]

Well Vaping could get you 10 years in jail, equivalent to rape in Thailand

[Mac98]

Try smoking a pipe. You don't inhale. Been smoking a pipe 55 years, heart strong, lungs perfect. CDC chart shows life expectancy of pipe smokers to be the same as lifelong non-smokers. The reduction in stress that it brings is also helpful. 

[bristolboy]

2 hours ago, Mac98 said:

Try smoking a pipe. You don't inhale. Been smoking a pipe 55 years, heart strong, lungs perfect. CDC chart shows life expectancy of pipe smokers to be the same as lifelong non-smokers. The reduction in stress that it brings is also helpful. 

Where did you get this info from? R. J. Reynolds?

 

Smoking a pipe 'damages health'

 

Doctors from the American Cancer Society found that smoking a pipe increased the risk of six cancers, namely cancer of the colon, oesophagus, larynx, lung oropharynx and pancreas.

It also increased the risk of heart disease, stroke and chronic lung disease.

The doctors said that while smoking a pipe is not as dangerous as smoking cigarettes, it can still seriously damage health.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3766349.stm

[Mac98]

22 hours ago, bristolboy said:

Where did you get this info from? R. J. Reynolds?

 

Smoking a pipe 'damages health'

 

Doctors from the American Cancer Society found that smoking a pipe increased the risk of six cancers, namely cancer of the colon, oesophagus, larynx, lung oropharynx and pancreas.

It also increased the risk of heart disease, stroke and chronic lung disease.

The doctors said that while smoking a pipe is not as dangerous as smoking cigarettes, it can still seriously damage health.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3766349.stm

Almost all of those risks cited are for pipe smokers who inhale, usually former cigarette smokers. A U.S. Surgeon General report, "Smoking and Health" (No. 1103, page 112), states "Death rates for current pipe smokers were little if at all higher than non-smokers, even with men smoking 10 hopefully a day and with men who had smoked pipes for more than 30 years."

    The higher risks for pipe smokers ( who don't inhale) are those of easily treated oral cancers on the lip or tongue. These health negatives are easily offset by lowering that daily health risk and heart killer, stress.

[attrayant]

8 minutes ago, Mac98 said:

Almost all of those risks cited are for pipe smokers who inhale, usually former cigarette smokers.

 

Then couldn't we just tell cigarette smokers not to inhale?  Then they essentially become pipe smokers in terms of the risk.

[Credo]

1 hour ago, attrayant said:

 

Then couldn't we just tell cigarette smokers not to inhale?  Then they essentially become pipe smokers in terms of the risk.

That would be like trying to tell heroin addicts to shoot up but don't use a needle.   It's an addiction to nicotine which is very, very addictive.   

[attrayant]

Just point out how saying "switch to a pipe but don't inhale" is equivalent to "keep smoking cigarettes but don't inhale".  I agree neither is realistic.

[Mac98]

6 hours ago, attrayant said:

 

Then couldn't we just tell cigarette smokers not to inhale?  Then they essentially become pipe smokers in terms of the risk.

Good idea!

[bristolboy]

7 hours ago, Mac98 said:

Almost all of those risks cited are for pipe smokers who inhale, usually former cigarette smokers. A U.S. Surgeon General report, "Smoking and Health" (No. 1103, page 112), states "Death rates for current pipe smokers were little if at all higher than non-smokers, even with men smoking 10 hopefully a day and with men who had smoked pipes for more than 30 years."

    The higher risks for pipe smokers ( who don't inhale) are those of easily treated oral cancers on the lip or tongue. These health negatives are easily offset by lowering that daily health risk and heart killer, stress.

The report you cite dates from 1959! Not so much data back then..

[Mac98]

4 hours ago, bristolboy said:

The report you cite dates from 1959! Not so much data back then..

Problem with current studies is most are complications of other studies. When you read the summaries they will state: This report was undertaken to add to the fight against tobacco and contradict earlier studies... So much for a neutral search for truth. In the part that cites studies and specific harm done will be two other studies cited, but ignored, that showed no such harm. Too much cherry picking, which I'm doing, citing a study before the war on tobacco. I do not deny the harm caused by cigarettes, I just object to being forced to pay for that harm through sin taxes on a relatively harmless activity.