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LIVE LONGER WITH OUR GUIDE TO BETTER HEALTH
From
the US Center for Disease
Control
(CDC)
An
estimated 46.2 million adults
in the United States smoke cigarettes even
though this single behavior will result in
death or disability for half of all
regular smokers.
Cigarette
smoking is responsible for more than
440,000 deaths each year. More
than 8.6 million people in the United
States have at least one serious illness caused
by smoking. If current patterns of
smoking persist, 6.4 million people
currently younger than 18 will die prematurely
from a tobacco-related disease.
Tobacco use is the single most
avoidable cause of disease, disability, and
death in the United States. Over the
past 4 decades, cigarette smoking has caused an
estimated 12 million deaths, including
4.1 million deaths from cancer, 5.5
million deaths from cardiovascular diseases, 2.1
million deaths from respiratory diseases, and
94,000 infant deaths related to their mother’s
smoking.
Smokeless tobacco, cigars, and pipes also
have deadly consequences, including lung,
larynx, esophageal, and oral cancer.
Low-tar cigarettes and novel tobacco
products such as bidis and clove cigarettes are
not safe alternatives.
The harmful
effects of smoking do not end with the smoker.
... each year, primarily because of exposure to
secondhand smoke, an estimated 3,000
nonsmoking Americans die of lung cancer, and
more than 35,000 die of heart disease.
An estimated 150,000–300,000 children younger
than 18 months of age have respiratory tract
infections because of exposure to secondhand
smoke.
The World Health
Organization (WHO) estimates of the
number of deaths caused by smoking every year is
4.9 million.
QUIT smoking
NOW! |