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Subscribe to RSSLONDON -–Women in developing countries are starting to smoke at younger ages, according to a study that found "alarming patterns" of tobacco use around the world.
Despite years of anti-smoking measures being encouraged across the world, most developing countries have low quit rates, according to the study in The Lancet medical journal on Friday -- and tobacco is likely to kill half its users.
Wide differences exist in the rates of smoking between genders and nations, as well as major disparities in access to effective anti-smoking policies and treatments.
"Although 1.1 billion people have been covered by the adoption of the most effective tobacco-control policies since 2008, 83 percent of the world's population are not covered by two or more of these policies," Gary Giovino of the University at Buffalo School of Public Health and Health Professions in New York, who led the research, told Reuters.
Such measures include legislation in some developed nations banning smoking in public places, imposing advertising bans and requiring more graphic health warnings on cigarette packets.
The findings come as the world's leading tobacco firms, British American Tobacco, Britain's Imperial Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco lost a crucial legal appeal in Australia this week against the introduction of plain tobacco packaging.
Australia's planned "no logo" laws are in line with World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations and are being watched closely by Britain, Norway, New Zealand, Canada and India, which are considering similar measures to help fight smoking.
Full Health coverage on NBCNews.com
Tobacco kills up to half of its users, according to the WHO. Smoking causes lung cancer, which is often fatal, and other chronic respiratory diseases. It is also a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, the world's number one killers. Other forms of tobacco use include snuff or chewing tobacco.
Australian court OKs logo ban on cigarette packs
Giovino said his findings "reinforce the need for effective tobacco control."
Higher rate of smoking in men
Using data from Global Adult Tobacco Surveys (GATS) carried out between 2008 and 2010, Giovino's team compared patterns of tobacco use and cessation in people aged 15 or older from 14 low- and middle-income countries. They included data from Britain and the United States for comparison.
CNBC's Brian Shactman explains why investors are attracted to high dividend yielding tobacco stocks.
More Cancer news and information on NBCNews.com
They found disproportionately high rates of smoking among men -- at an average 41 percent versus 5 percent in women -- and wide variation in smoking prevalence between GATS countries, ranging from about 22 percent of men in Brazil to more than 60 percent in Russia.
Rates of female smoking ranged from 0.5 percent in Egypt to almost 25 percent in Poland. Women in Britain and the United States also had high smoking rates, at 21 percent and 16 percent respectively.
Study finds slowing drop in youth tobacco use
A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control found that the rate of decline in youth smoking in the United States has virtually ceased in recent years.
In the wake of a new study showing high rates of smoking among teens, the Centers for Disease Control issued a new 12-week ad campaign to get people to stop smoking. NBC's Tom Costello reports.
The new study in The Lancet found that around 64 percent of tobacco users smoke manufactured cigarettes, although loose-leaf chewing tobacco and snuff were particularly common in India and Bangladesh.
Giovino also pointed to the link between tobacco use and escalating health-care costs.
"Tobacco contributes an enormous burden to the health care system in developed countries, and that scenario will play out in the not-too-distant future in low and middle income countries. It already has in many countries, in India for example," Giovino told the U.S. government-funded Voice of America broadcaster.
Complete World news coverage on NBCNews.com
Dr. Cheryl Healton with the American Legacy Foundation offers tips for smokers trying to quit smoking. NBC's Erika Edwards has the report.
Hundreds of millions of smokers in China
With an estimated 301 million tobacco users, China has more than any other country, closely followed by India with almost 275 million. Other countries included in the study were Bangladesh, Mexico, Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay and Vietnam.
The researchers said the rise in tobacco use among young women was of particular concern.
Researchers also said that powerful pro-tobacco forces were at work in countries such as China.
"The China National Tobacco Company has supported elementary schools in China, dozens and dozens of them. And they use their support to promote propaganda about tobacco use, and they are basically telling students that genius comes from hard work and tobacco helps them to be successful. That to me is mind boggling, that a government would tell its children to use tobacco to be successful when tobacco will addict them and shorten their lives," Giovino told Voice of America.
EU considering cigarette logo ban to deter smoking
A new study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health says nicotine gum and patches may not help people quit smoking after all. NBC's Brian Williams reports.
'Extraordinary' under-funding
In a commentary about the study also published in The Lancet, Jeffrey Koplan from Emory University in Atlanta and Judith Mackay from the World Lung Foundation in Hong Kong called for more investment in tobacco control measures, saying current under-funding was "extraordinary."
In low income countries, they said, for every $9,100 received in tobacco taxes, only $1 was spent on tobacco control.
Cigarettes are to be banished from sight in England's shops. After 2015, retailers won't be allowed to display tobacco. The British government is also considering whether to require tobacco products be sold in plain packaging. ITV's Chris Choi reports.
The WHO says tobacco already kills around 6 million people a year worldwide, including more than 600,000 non-smokers who die from exposure to second-hand smoke.
By 2030, if current trends continue, the WHO predicts tobacco could be killing 8 million people a year.
Read the full report on The Lancet (registration required to read the full study)
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
You know what has a 100% guarantee expectancy to kill it's user?
LIFE
Exactly Dennis! Either you're going to get cancer or you're not....whether you smoke or not. So enjoy life and quit worrying about it.
Smokie-788412
Jimee Johnson==You forget that it's the smokers lungs, heart and circulatory system and theirs alone. If that's the way the want to live leave let them go their own way.
The problem with that philosophy is when they get fu ck ed up by their habit they dont simply suffer in silence. They go into the medical system to get treated and are probably one of the true reasons for health costs going up beyond health insurance and pharmaceutical corporate greed. Dont misunderstand though, i do not desire for anyone to suffer in silence when they get messed up, but i do desire that people use their intelligence to reduce the odds of them getting messed up, smokers can avoid getting messed up by simply choosing to not smoke.
Well the world is getting more educated and learning that smoking really causes less cancer, respiratory problems, and heart disease than driving a car that uses gasoline, or truck that run on diesel fuels. Smog from fossil fuels kills more people worldwide that smoking does! But as the Oilmen have all the politicians in their pockets, and fund all the medical research there is little that will change the course of the anti-smoking campaigns funded by them, not to mention all the millions made by the insurance companies out there! Just don't think that there exists any studies done with anyone who doesn't drive a car, let alone live in a smog free area, that participated in any research published to date! That makes current anti-smoking studies obsolete, doesn't it! Kind of like fixing the results of the research, prior to publishing! Some circles call it fudging the results! [:-(]
A little less criticism, people. Tobacco exports are some of the more positive aspects of the American trade deficit. And as Gary pointed out, smoking is not the only respiratory hazard people in third world cities face. I read an article several years ago in which some scientists estimated that breathing the air in Mexico City was the equivalent of smoking ten packs of cigs a day. I imagine Beijing is getting close to that. The main negative aspect with smoking is that it kills the user after their reproductive years, not before.
The WHO says tobacco already kills around 6 million people a year worldwide, including more than 600,000 non-smokers who die from exposure to second-hand smoke.
Tobacco Control Scotland has admitted it has no record of any deaths or demonstrable harm caused to anyone from second hand smoke as the UK Govt pushes forward the idea of third hand smoke, aka Invisible Smoke, without any evidence at all.
Bill Gibson, The International Coalition Against Prohibition (TICAP) chairman, was interested to know how many actual deaths and respiratory illnesses were recorded in Scotland from passive smoking, given the reported guesstimate 13,000 figure which is repeated parrot fashion year after year.
He put in an FOI request and found that there wasn't one death or respiratory illnesses attributed to SHS or tobacco. Perhaps I should repeat that. Not one death has been recorded in Scotland as definitely related to tobacco smoking or passive smoking.
patnurseblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012 ... eaths.html
If we did the same the world over we would get the same answer.
Remember this story from last year:
B.S. Study: 600,000 People Die Worldwide From Secondhand Smoke Every Year
grendelreport.posterous.com/bs...
JOINT STATEMENT ON THE RE-ASSESSMENT OF THE TOXICOLOGICAL TESTING OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS"
7 October, the COT meeting on 26 October and the COC meeting on 18
November 2004.
uk/pdfs/cotstatement
tobacco0409
"5. The Committees commented that tobacco smoke was a highly complex chemical mixture and that the causative agents for smoke induced diseases (such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, effects on reproduction and on offspring) was unknown. The mechanisms by which tobacco induced adverse effects were not established. The best information related to tobacco smoke - induced lung cancer, but even in this instance a detailed mechanism was not available. The Committees therefore agreed that on the basis of current knowledge it would be very difficult to identify a toxicological testing strategy or a biomonitoring approach for use in volunteer studies with smokers where the end-points determined or biomarkers measured were predictive of the overall burden of tobacco-induced adverse disease."
In other words ... our first hand smoke theory is so lame we can't even design a bogus lab experiment to prove it. In fact ... we don't even know how tobacco does all of the magical things we claim it does.
The greatest threat to the second hand theory is the weakness of the first hand theory.
OSHA ON SHS/ETS
OSHA / NIOSH RESEARCH
In 1991 NIOSH { OSHA' research group} Looked into ETS although at the time they recommended reducing ETS exposure they found the studies lacking.
NIOSH recognizes that these recent epidemiological studies have several shortcomings: lack of objective measures for charachterizing and quantifying exposures,failures to adjust for all confounding variables,potential misclassification of ex-smokers as non-smokers,unavailability of comparison groups that have not been exposed to ETS, and low statistical power.
Research is needed to investigate the following issues:
1. More acurate quantification of the increased risk of lung cancer associated with ETS exposure,including determination of other contributing factors[e.g.,occupational exposures]that may accentuate the risk.
2.Determination of the concentration and distributuion of ETS components in the workplace to help quantify the risk for the U.S. working population.
a.The association of ETS exposure with cancer other than lung cancer
b.The relationship between ETS exposure and cardiovascular disease
c.The relationship between ETS exposure and nonmalignant resporatory diseases such asthma,bronchitis and emphysema, and
the effects of ETS on lung function and respiratory systems
c. Possible mechanisms of ETS damage to the cardiovascular system,such as platelet aggravation,increased COHb leading to oxygen depravation,or damage to endothelium
d.Effects of workplace smoking restrictions on the ETS exposure of nonsmokersand ETS-related health effects in nonsmokers
After ten years of no conclusive research and lack of studies that didn't eliminate the bias OSHA decided that the studies did not have substance and here is there present policy.
Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS)
Because the organic material in tobacco doesn't burn completely, cigarette smoke contains more than 4,700 chemical compounds. Although OSHA has no regulation that addresses tobacco smoke as a whole, 29 CFR 1910.1000 Air contaminants, limits employee exposure to several of the main chemical components found in tobacco smoke. In normal situations, exposures would not exceed these permissible exposure limits (PELs), and, as a matter of prosecutorial discretion, OSHA will not apply the General Duty Clause to ETS.
Scientific Evidence Shows Secondhand Smoke Is No Danger
Written By: Jerome Arnett, Jr., M.D.
Published In: Environment & Climate News
Publication Date: July 1, 2008
Publisher:
.org/policybot/resul
ts/23399/Scientific_
Evidence_Sho...
myth-of-second-hand-
smoke
ders.com/2009/01/the
-myth-of-second-hand
-smoke
BS Alert: The 'third-hand smoke' hoax
The thirdhand smoke scam
Heart attacks Frauds and Myths..
line.com/index.php/s
ite/article/7451/
TobaccoControl Tactics
TCTactics aims to provide up-to-date information on the Tobacco Control Industry, its allies and those promoting the extremist anti-tobacco agenda that no longer targets just tobacco but ordinary adult consumers who use it.
The website explores how this industry – with support from the pharmaceutical nicotine producers and government tax funds – influences and often distorts public health debates, using a whole raft of lobbying, public relations tactics and junk science.
Thank you so much for sharing the info with us. I wasn't even aware that there was such an organization. Kudos to you.
It's turned into the,"don't tell ME how to live my life",syndrome; Just like the war on drugs. It's time to let it be. The most effective bi-line: go ahead,kill yourself if you want to. Sorry to see you go.
Smoking is just a sign of the global economic situation. When you can't find a job, you get bored and despondent, and when you get bored an despondent, you sit around smoking cigarettes, when you sit around smoking cigarettes, you think about why you're not able to find a job...it's just like those cable vs. satellite t.v. commercials...
Cigarettes kill HALF of their users. Anything else that did that would be illegal and sellers would be locked up for murder. And that 50% of users doesn't even count the health damage caused by second hand smoke. There are lots of things that are unhealthy for us -- but I doubt that any of them that are legal actually kill HALF of their users.
Millions of deaths a year. Blood on the hands of tobacco companies and of politicians who take money from them. My Dad died an excruciating, lingering death from Emphysema. I guess you could blame it on him but he started at a very young age and was so deeply addicted he couldn't stop until his doctors told him he had 15% lung capacity left. I have severe asthma probably caused by years of intense second hand smoke growing up.
Legalize marijuana and ban cigarettes completely.
Here is the answer: since we are so smart we will think for them and force them to quit smoking. There is nothing more rewarding than dictating proper behavior to others for their own good. Ask any liberal, they will tell you!
What the hell is third hand smoke?
Smoke from clothing or carpet/furniture I would assume.
The better way to go about it is to force tobacco companies to stop putting carcinogens in their products and go with all natural cigarettes/cigars. Still not healthy but they will kill you less fast and will be less dangerous to those around you.
Yes, but that would make too much sense - like allowing us to choose to buy and consume healthy natural raw milk. And, have you heard that they just made new federal laws that have raised the taxes beyond reason and are making a stand against the all natural tobacco stores. They need to put them out of business to protect the big manufacturers from the devastating influence of small business on the market shares - at least the roll-your-own kind. It is the same story all over the place. Big money is chasing more of itself and trampling on the competition to keep its control in place.
All this is true for being a senior citizen as well, so we shouldn't grow old either, right! This smoking issue is being taken way to far. We are all living breathing beings and as such, we will all grow sick and die sometime and from something. Heck, even oxygen - the gas we need in order to survive - is a poisonous toxic substance, and lets not even begin to discuss the water we drink.The fact is that just by breathing or drinking water, we are causing this machine, we call our body, to go through the process of oxidation. The rate is unique and different for every body.
So, why is this issue so important to some people? The bottom line is that smokers are offending someone and that, it seems, has become a crime subject to fines and fees that society has determined is reasonable cause for allowing someone else to make a buck. Our social mores do not allow us to place levies against someone for the color of their skin or accent anymore, so we need something else to fill the void. Since we can't point a finger at anyone just because they smell bad, lets just single out something we can lay scientific facts upon.
Why couldn't we spend as much time and energy just trying to honor our fellow man instead of playing one-upman-ship? Because that is not how money gets made. We need ire and aggression to feed this beast and get paid.
There is a social disease spreading on this planet. This sickness is called intolerance and it is going to eat a hole in society by taking one victim at a time and turning him or her against their brother or sister. When smokers are gone, there will come another cause to beat the drum against.
I like your post!
I am just thinking that Nicotine patches and gum, will be needed to be passed out with the rest of supplies going around! It is time for some people to quit!!!!