According to the American Cancer Society, tobacco use remains the single largest preventable cause of disease and premature death in the United States.
Each year, smoking accounts for an estimated 438,000 premature deaths, including 38,000 deaths among nonsmokers as a result of secondhand smoke. Half of all Americans who continue to smoke will die from smoking-related diseases.
Karl Thomas, MD, pulmonologist, and director of the Lung Cancer Clinic at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, talks about the dangers of smoking and benefits of quitting:
What are the effects of cigarette smoking on cancer rates?
Across the board, the most important thing to remember is that cigarette smoking increases your risk, not only for lung cancer—I think most people know and somehow understand that lung cancer rates go up in smokers—but the most important thing to remember is it’s not just lung cancer.
Cigarette smoke and cigarette smoking increases the population’s risk and the individual patient’s risk for cancers of the mouth and nose, of the esophagus, of the stomach and some of the abdominal organs; but it also increases the risk for other things like renal and bladder cancer.
There really isn’t an area of the body that’s not affected by cigarette smoke. It’s cancers of the head and the neck, and the chest, as well as the abdomen.
Aside from increasing the risk of cancer, what other health concerns might smoking increase?
The biggest thing we should be concerned with is vascular disease—the risk for, and the development of things like stroke and heart attacks. It also can cause poor circulation problems.
There are other things like lung disease, for example, asthma, chronic bronchitis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that are also dramatically increased in patients who smoke. Smoking really does cause more problems then just cancer. It’s a lung disease problem. It’s a heart disease problem. It’s a cancer problem. The list goes on and on. There really isn’t an organ system that isn’t affected by cigarette smoke.
What are the health risks for nonsmokers who inhale secondhand smoke?
The biggest health risks we worry about are arterial and vascular problems, and chronic lung diseases like asthma and chronic bronchitis. It can have some effects for people who suffer from allergies, making those worse.
What harmful chemicals are found in cigarette smoke?
That’s a really hard question—because there are too many to count is the simple answer.
Most people think nicotine has a lot to do with the vascular and heart related complications of cigarette smoking, but the reality is that there are so many different chemicals in the plume of smoke and in the tar from the cigarettes, that it’s really very difficult to say which one is the causing factor. Nicotine clearly plays a role in the cardiovascular problems but there are all these other chemicals. We call them reactive oxygen species and free radicals. There are all kinds of categories and names for these things, but the bottom line is that there’s hundreds of chemicals in cigarette smoke that are probably harmful or dangerous.
How would quitting smoking affect the risk of developing cancer and other diseases?
The risk goes down fairly dramatically and fairly quickly, and the important thing for our listeners is that the risk goes down no matter what your age is. For a young person who has taken up smoking or smokeless tobacco and quits, their risk of having cardiac disease, or emphysema, or cancer goes down very quickly. That’s also true for older patients and older listeners who may still be smoking in their 70s or 80s. Their risk for the heart diseases and the lung diseases goes down whenever they stop smoking.
When do the health benefits of not smoking, or not being around a smoker, start?
Same thing—the bottom line is getting away from cigarette smoke—whether you’re a smoker or you’re exposed to it in sidestream smoke, or passive smoking, or environmental tobacco smoke—all of those words that people may have heard. The benefits start immediately.
What would you tell the person who has tried unsuccessfully to quit smoking, and believes they just cannot quit?
What I would tell those people is that with enough work and in the right situation, everybody can quit smoking.
We’ve been taking care of patients in my clinic for the past 10 years who have various related smoking problems of their lungs. There isn’t a patient we’ve talked to that we couldn’t find a way to help them quit smoking or help them through quitting smoking.
The advice I have for the person who just can’t seem to quit is to:
- Talk with his health care provider
- Begin thinking about good reasons to quit smoking
- Come up with a plan to quit smoking
- Ask about medications, or nicotine systems to help
There really are a lot of things out there—not only counseling, but also medications that can help them. Everybody can quit smoking if they’re given enough help and they’re in the right situation.
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