Two new studies should give you two more reasons to quit smoking or even better, never to start in the first place. Published in Tobacco Control, researchers from the University of Queensland School of Population Health in Australia compared all-cause death (mortality) rates between male and female smokers in a 10-year follow-up study using the Australian National Death Index. A total of 12,154 men and 11,707 women were compared, and it was found that the hazard ratio for death from all causes for smokers was the same regardless of gender, and the risk continued to increase as the amount smoked increased. Similar dose-response effects were observed for specific smoking-related conditions such as lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
In the second study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, scientists from Duke University Medical Center retrospectively reviewed the data of patients undergoing renal (kidney) cell carcinoma (RCC) surgery between 2000 and 2009. Of the 845 patients, 19 percent were current and 29 percent were former smokers, and each group had about a 50 percent increased risk of advanced (metastatic) RCC. Heavier smoking was also associated with an increased risk of advanced RCC, while smoking cessation reduced these odds.
For more reasons why we say: Don’t smoke — don’t even start, read our publication Cigarettes: What the Warning label Doesn’t tell You.
