Surgeon General Links More Diseases to Smoking
A long list of diseases -- including acute myeloid leukemia and cancers of the kidney, cervix, stomach and pancreas -- have been added to the catalog of serious health problems caused by smoking.
Abdominal aortic aneurysm, pneumonia, periodontitis and cataracts are also among the diseases now linked to smoking, said a report released Thursday by U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona.
Current evidence doesn't offer conclusive proof that liver cancer, colorectal cancer, prostate cancer or erectile dysfunction is caused by smoking, the report also said, adding that smoking may not cause breast cancer in women overall. But smoking may increase the risk of developing breast cancer, depending on a woman's genetics.
Carmona also reported that the number of people who smoke has dropped from about 42 percent in 1965 to about 22 percent in 2002, the last year for which such data is available, according to the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, new government statistics also released Thursday showed that while smoking has declined, the rate is not sufficient to achieve a 2010 national health objective of cutting smoking prevalence in adults to 12 percent.
The report, by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, covered the 1983-2002 period and found that men smoked more than women, young folks smoked more than old folks, and smoking prevalence was higher for those below the poverty line and those without a college degree.
On the plus side, however, the CDC data showed that, in 2002, an estimated 46 million adults were former smokers, representing, for the first time, more than 50 percent of adults who had ever smoked. The data were published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
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