Aging Begins at 30

Smoking: The Proof of the Pudding

Creation Date: December 2000
Last Revision Date: December 2000
Peer Review Status: Internally Peer Reviewed

Data from eight states with cancer registries have recently been compared to data from California. Tobacco control programs were started in California in 1988. Smoking rates have declined rapidly as a result, much more so than in other parts of the country. This month in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports the California fall reported in lung cancer was from 88 cases per 100,00 population to 60, a 14% drop. In the other eight states (10% of the U.S. population) the fall was only 3% in the same 10-year period. The lung cancer decline in California men was 1.5 times greater than in the other eight states. The incidence of lung cancer in women fell 5% in California while in the other states it rose 13%. Clearly smoking causes lung cancer and reducing exposure and stopping smoking prevents it.

In Iowa, 23% of adults smoke but 41% of University of Iowa students smoke. Twelve thousand Iowa kids start to smoke each year. A third of them will die prematurely. Do your kids a favor. Stop smoking yourself and educate them on the dangers they face by trying to seem "sophisticated."

In all age groups cancer of the lung is a very serious disease. Only about 10% of the elderly lung cancer patients will have no other disease. About 60% have heart disease, 25% other cancers (some of both due to smoking) and about 15% have kidney failure. With treatment in both age groups, about 30% will live over a year and 10% to 15% will survive five or more years.

Quitters do win, the American Cancer Society tells us. Within 20 minutes of smoking your last cigarette (if you had no background hypertension) your blood pressure drops to normal. In eight hours the poisonous level of carbon monoxide returns to normal. In two days your taste and smelling abilities improve. In one to nine months your coughing, sinus congestion, fatigue and shortness of breath diminish. By five years your risk of dying of lung cancer decreases by half. By fifteen years your cardiovascular disease risk and your risk of dying of lung cancer decreases almost to that of a non-smoker.

I’ve heard you say often that you want preventive care. Here it is! Each year lung cancer kills one million worldwide, including 150,000 Americans. If you smoke, you need to stop. If you don’t smoke, don’t start.

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See related Patient Topics Cancers, Lung Cancer, Lungs and Breathing, Smoking or Substance Abuse.

See related Provider Topics Cancers, Lung Cancer, Lungs and Breathing or Substance Abuse.

All contents copyright © 1992-2004 the Author(s) and The University of Iowa. All rights reserved.

http://www.vh.org/adult/patient/internalmedicine/aba30/2000/lungcancer.html