Health effects of smoking tobacco

Lore & Background

In the late 1700s and the 1800s, the medical community initially accepted that tobacco use caused certain diseases, including mouth cancers. In the 1880s, automation dramatically reduced the cost of cigarettes, leading to expanded marketing and use. From the 1890s onwards, associations of tobacco use with cancers and vascular disease were regularly reported. By the 1930s, multiple researchers concluded that tobacco use caused cancer and that tobacco users lived substantially shorter lives.

Reader's Guide

Follow-up studies in the early 1950s found that people who smoked died faster and were more likely to die of lung cancer and cardiovascular disease. These results were accepted in the medical community and publicized among the general public in the mid-1960s. Many countries have since taken measures to control tobacco consumption by restricting usage and sales, printing warning messages on packaging, enacting smoking bans in public places, and imposing tobacco taxation. The health effects of smoking vary depending on frequency and duration, with cigarettes sold in least developed countries having higher tar content and less filtration, increasing vulnerability to related diseases.

Did You Know?

• Tobacco smoke contains over 70 chemicals known as carcinogens that cause cancer.
• Half of tobacco smokers die from complications related to smoking.
• The World Health Organization estimates that annually more than 7 million people die from tobacco-related causes, including 1.6 million non-smokers due to passive smoking.
• Smoking earlier in life and smoking cigarettes with higher tar content increases the risk of disease.