Smoking and Lung Cancer Risk

Most of us know that smoking causes cancer, especially lung cancer, but still around 20% world population smokes. It makes around 1 billion smokers around the world, out of which 800 million are male smokers and 200 million are female smokers. Most of them are either not aware of risk or lung cancer or they are so much addicted they don't worry about the risk anymore and give false excuses to themselves. I have heard some smokers saying that smoke don't hurt them anymore, instead it makes them stronger. But thinking such nonsense they are not only putting themselves at risk of lung cancer but also their near ones, as passive smoking is also a cause of lung cancer.

Following facts might help you in knowing that how much smokers are putting their health at stake.

  • Lung Cancer affects 546 out of every one million people every year. 
  • Smoking increases risk of developing lung cancer by 23 times compared to non-smokers.
  • More than 90% cases of lung cancer are smokers.
  • Even a few percent of non-smokers suffering from lung cancer are due to passive smoking.
  • Cigarette smoking is cause of every 1 out of 5 deaths in US. [2]

Smokers Stats

  • Currently 15.5% American adults smoke.
  • 20% of world population smokes.
  • Number of smokers are continuously increasing in developing countries. Number of smokers increased by 36% in India between 1998 and 2015. [1]
  • Number of smokers are decreasing in developed countries due to spread of awareness. Number of smokers decreased in US by 5.4% between 2005 to 2016. [2]

Most of the smokers can't make it above 64

Yes, at least CDC report is pointing towards that. According to that report the number of smokers in different adult age groups are as follows.

  • 13.1% of 18–24 years
  • 17.6% of 25-44 Years
  • 18% of 45-64 Years
  • 8.8% of above 65 Years

This research clearly indicates that new generations of US are not getting into habit of smoking as their elders did (thanks to increasing awareness). But my personal view about this report also indicates that most of the smokers don't make it above 64, which resulted in lower percentage of smokers in 65+ age group. It is not necessary that most of them died of lung cancer, but there are a lot more diseases that they can get due to smoking and heart diseases are one of them.

Reference:
[1] http://www.dnaindia.com/health/report-since-1998-number-of-indian-male-smokers-inceased-by-36-new-study-2183088
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adult_data/cig_smoking/index.htm

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