Each year, tobacco kills 78.000 people in France and this figure could be revised upwards in view of the results of a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. According to the latter, tobacco is indeed much more dangerous than one thinks and the mortality of smokers is underestimated by 17%.
The researchers, who observed a sample of nearly a million individuals smokers for ten years, even, according to Le Figaro, identified 15 causes of premature death linked to smoking, in addition to those already identified. Fifteen diseases for which tobacco is an aggravating factor and which are added to the list of 21 diseases for which the links with cigarettes are established (cancers of the lungs, pancreas, bladder, esophagus, diabetes, etc. ).
Renal insufficiency and obstruction of the arteries
The risk of dying from renal failure or hypertensive heart disease is thus doubled in smokers and the risk of intestinal ischemia (obstruction of the arteries of the digestive tract, Editor's note) by six. In addition, the risk of dying from breast cancer increases by 30% in smokers, while the probability of dying from prostate cancer increases by 43% in men. Not to mention that 75% of laryngeal cancers and 50% of bladder cancers are ultimately attributable to tobacco. Which would also be involved in the development of cancers of the liver, pancreas, stomach, cervix, ovary, etc.
According to Catherine Hill, epidemiologist at the Gustave-Roussy Institute, tobacco is responsible for 78.000 deaths per year in France. "But if the results of this study are confirmed, this figure should be inflated by about 15%", she believes in the columns of the Figaro. In the United States, 60.000 deaths should be added to the 437.000 recorded each year.
Source : 20 minutes
