The smoking causes over 50 kinds of cancer diseases as of spreading 4700 chemical substances from a smothered cigarette and if prompt action was not initiated, the death rate would be increased up to ten million people by the year 2020 as a result of the use of tobacco.
Talking to APP, LUMHS’S Assistant Professor of Medicine, Jamshoro, Dr Santosh Kumar said that smokeless tobacco causes oral cancer and might be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, increasing the risk for oral, lung, and oesophagal cancers while water pipe smoking increases the risk for oral and lip cancer and obstructive lung disease.
Santosh Kumar said that smoking causes a range of diseases never before suspected, including cataracts, acute myeloid leukaemia and cervical, kidney, pancreatic and stomach cancers. In fact, smoking affects virtually every organ of the body, he added.
He said that worldwide smoking is responsible for many times more deaths than road and air accidents, murders, suicides and HIV infections put together; and the smoking-related diseases are responsible for one in every 10 adult deaths.
Kumar said that health authorities have launched various campaigns to get as many people to quit smoking as possible. He said that the cigarettes were the most commonly used, adding that smoking cigars and pipes and using smokeless tobacco products (chewing tobacco and snuff) were also risky.
He said that tobacco could play a role in causing high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.
He said that the passive smokers were more prone to hazards as they inhale all the smoke of the active smokers so the family members of the smokers have more chances of falling prey to the above-mentioned diseases.
Dr Santosh said the chance that non-tobacco users get mouth cancer is 50 times lower and at the beginning, chewing tobacco determines the appearance of some injuries in the mouth. These injuries precede oral cancer and the early detection of such injuries helps in the treatment of mouth cancer.
He said people must also know that many of the mouth cancer symptoms are provoked by tobacco. Smoking cigarettes and even chewing tobacco may be actions that accelerate the appearance of mouth cancer symptoms.
Dr Santosh Kumar also demanded from the government to enforce the laws strictly banning smoking at the public places, offices, schools, colleges, during travelling and also to put a ban on the advertisements of cigarettes in print and electronic media.
