| ‘Light’ smoking triples risk of death from lung cancer: Study |
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Norwegian researchers have found that there is no such thing as light smoking and that even indulging in less than five cigarettes per day triple the chances of developing heart disease or lung cancer.
The researchers pored over health and death rates of 43,000 men and women from the mid 1970s up to 2002 and compared their cardiac health status with their cigarette use. All the participants were aged between 35 to 49 years at the start of the observations and were monitored for the development of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
They found that a significant proportion of the light smokers had increased their daily quota of cigarettes to 9 and many of them had given up even as their consumption increased. “In both sexes, smoking 1-4 cigarettes per day was associated with a significantly higher risk of dying from ischaemic heart disease and from all causes, and from lung cancer in women,” said Dr. Aage Tverdal of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo and lead researcher in the study.
They also found that compared with those who had never smoked, people who smoked 1 to 4 cigarettes per day were three times as likely to die of coronary disease or lung cancer. In women this risk increased to five times. Dr. Kjell Bjartveit, of the National Health Screening Service in Oslo and a co-author of the study said that health officials must warn people of the risks associated with even the so-called 'light' smoking.
Details of the study are available in the latest issue of the journal Tobacco Control.
Posted
on : Fri, 23 Sep 2005 09:15 GMT | General News
By : Rob Davis
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