Most diseases out there tend to effect one set of people differently than others, it’s just how it is. MS, drinking and melanoma effect men and women differently. There is now a study out there that shows there is something that has taken equality seriously. Research has now confirmed that women who smoke are just as likely to die of lung cancer and other smoking related diseases as men. It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or woman, if you smoke, you’re more likely to die, on average, about a decade earlier than those who don’t smoke.
The New England Journal of Medicine shows that cigarette smoking remains as a leading cause of death in the U.S. even though the risks have been made clear. There are quite a few who have never smoked, or have given up the habit due to the information that has been made available, but smoking still exerts a huge toll and the influence of the tobacco companies is still strong.
In 1960, 1 in 3 adult women smoked according to the CDC. Women really started smoking two decades after men. It’s no accident that the tobacco giant of the time released Virginia Slims, the first cigarette marketed solely to women at the same time.
Michael J. Thun, MD says:
It takes about 50 years for an epidemic to really get going and we are just now seeing the impact of the increase in smoking among women during this time period in terms of deaths from smoking. When women smoke like men, they die like men.
In a second analysis, researches have found that those who quit smoking before the age of forty, gain back most of the decade that smokers loose who continue to smoke in to their middle age.
This study also found that
- Smokers who quit in their mid 30s to mid 40s gained about nine years of life, those who quit at age 40-50 gained about six and those who quit after 50 but before 65 gained about four years of the 10 back.
- Smokers ages 25-79 were three times more likely to die as non-smokers in the same age group.
- People who never smoked were twice as likely to live to 80.
Researchers have also found that COPD deaths have been rising. The introduction of the ‘safer’ light or low-tar cigarette is largely to blame. Making it harder to inhale the tobacco, smokers compensate by breathing in harder and deeper to get their nicotine fix from the diluted cigarette.
Thun says
These brands may be partly or even wholly responsible for the fact that the death rate from COPD is so high among smokers. There is no safe cigarette.
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