Health : Health Buzz: Tobacco Could Kill 8 Million Annually by 2030

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Health Buzz: Tobacco Could Kill 8 Million Annually by 2030 Posted: 31 May 2011 07:46 AM PDT World Health Organization: Tobacco Could Kill 8 Million Annually by 2030 Tobacco will kill nearly 6 million people worldwide this year—and by 2030, the annual death toll could jump to 8 million. That's because governments aren't doing enough to encourage quitting or to protect against secondhand smoke, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. As it observes World No Tobacco Day today, the group is urging more countries to implement its tobacco control treaty, which calls for cutting smoking rates, limiting exposure to secondhand smoke, and curbing tobacco advertising and promotion. So far, 172 countries and the European Union have signed the treaty, Reuters reports; the United States signed a year ago. "It is not enough to become a party," WHO director-general Margaret Chan said in a statement. "Countries must also pass, or strengthen, the necessary implementing legislation and then rigorously enforce it." Stop Smoking: Secrets of Successful Quitters What We Know About How to Quit 12 Reasons to Really Quit Smoking We'll spare you the lecture. (Seriously, though. Stamp out that butt and flush the pack, already.) Tobacco use, namely cigarette smoking, is the chief cause of preventable death in the United States. Left unbridled, smoking could kill more than a billion people this century, according to the World Health Organization. That equals the number who would die if a Titanic sank every 24 minutes for the next 100 years, as former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop so starkly put it during a 2008 press conference. The reasons to quit smoking keep amassing—and they're not all about heart disease, lung cancer, or respiratory problems. Here's a few downsides you might not have considered. 1. It fogs the mind. Smoking may cloud the mind, according to accumulating research. A 2008 study in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that smoking in middle age is linked to memory problems and to a slide in reasoning abilities, though these risks appeared lessened for those who'd long quit; this is important, the authors wrote, because other research has shown that people with mild cognitive impairment in midlife develop dementia at an accelerated rate. Their report piggybacks on several focused on the older set: A 2007 analysis of 19 prior studies concluded that elderly smokers face a heightened risk of dementia and cognitive decline, compared with lifelong nonsmokers. And in 2004, researchers reported in Neurology that smoking appeared to hasten cognitive decline in dementia-free elderly smokers, bringing it on several times faster than in their nonsmoking peers. 2. It may bring on diabetes. As if we need any more risk factors for diabetes, an analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that across 25 prior studies, current smokers have a 44 percent greater chance of developing type 2 diabetes than nonsmokers do, and the risk was strongest for those with the heaviest habit, who clocked 20 or more cigarettes per day. In an accompanying editorial, researchers made a striking estimation: That some 12 percent of all type 2 diabetes cases nationwide might be attributable to smoking. [Read more: 12 Reasons to Really Quit Smoking.] Can Hypnosis Snuff Out a Smoker's Cigarette Habit? Bad Health Habits Rob 12 Years From Life Span: 6 Ways to Boost Willpower Is It Possible to Be Smoke Free in 30 Days? By now, it's almost a cliché to reiterate that smoking is the chief cause of preventable death in the United States. Yet approximately 46 million Americans are still lighting up, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. U.S. News spoke to clinical psychologist Daniel Seidman, director of smoking cessation services at Columbia University Medical Center, about his book Smoke-Free in 30 Days: The Pain-Free, Permanent Way to Quit (Fireside Trade Paperback Original). In it, Seidman draws on his 20-plus years of experience with thousands of patients and walks people through the quitting process—including how to prepare for the "quit day" and how to maintain their success. The big obstacles to quitting, he said, are numerous: "Really, there are three hurdles people have to get past: the physical, the automated behavior (which is the habit), and emotional belief systems. Most people, when they think about this addiction to smoking, think of it as a physical problem with some element of habit. But I think people really don't get that for many smokers, making a good emotional adjustment after they quit is the hardest thing. If every time for 20 years you get upset you take a cigarette, that's going to become very much a part of your emotional repertoire, right? Once you can get [people] to think differently about that emotional belief system, it really helps them move beyond smoking and lose interest in it." [Read more: Is It Possible to Be Smoke Free in 30 Days?] Check Out How 'Smoke Free' Your State Is 10 Smokiest U.S. Cities—and 10 Most Smoke-Free, Too This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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