Diseases Caused By Smoking Cigarettes
Smoking Diseases
Dr. Leroy E. Burney issued the US Public Health Service's first statement on cigarette smoking In July 1957. It identified smoking as a cause of lung cancer. Each succeeding Surgeon General has had occasion to issue additional and stronger warnings. These have linked smoking with lung cancer, with heart disease, with chronic lung disease, with other cancers, and with increases in overall mortality.
In 1962 the Royal College of Physicians in London concluded that "Cigarette smoking is a cause of lung cancer and bronchitis, and probably contributes to the development of coronary heart disease and various other less common diseases. It delays healing of gastric and duodenal ulcers."
Smoking Causes Heart Disease
Fifteen years later in 1979, there was no longer any doubt that cigarette smoking was directly related to coronary heart disease for both men and women in the United States.
By 1982, the foreword to the surgeon general’s report declared that "Cigarette smoking is a major cause of cancers of the lung, larynx, oral cavity, and esophagus, and is a contributory factor for the development of cancers of the bladder, pancreas, and kidney."
COPD is a Smoking Disease
Traditionally, chronic bronchitis and emphysema have been subsumed under the term chronic obstructive lung diseases (COLD) which is also known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Cigarette smoking is the major cause of COLD in the United States for both men and women.
It is now recognized that COPD comprises three separate, but often interconnected, disease processes:
chronic mucus hypersecretion, resulting in chronic cough and phlegm production;
airway thickening and narrowing with expiratory airflow obstruction;
and emphysema, which is an abnormal dilation of the distal airspaces along with destruction of alveolar walls. The last two conditions can develop into symptomatic ventilatory limitation.5
Secondhand Smoke
More recently, the 2006 surgeon general report, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke concludes:
Secondhand smoke exposure causes disease and premature death in children and adults who do not smoke.
Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), acute respiratory infections, ear problems, and more severe asthma. Smoking by parents causes respiratory symptoms and slows lung growth in their children.
Exposure of adults to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and causes coronary heart disease and lung cancer.
Summary - What Diseases Can You Get From Smoking?
Based on the scientific evidence we have considered in this article, smoking causes:
--heart disease
--cancers of the lung, larynx, oral cavity, and esophagus
--chronic bronchitis
--emphysema
--chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD or COLD)
--Smoking is also a contributory factor for the development of cancers of the bladder, pancreas, and kidney. Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), acute respiratory infections, ear problems, and more severe asthma.
