Smoking Linked to More Than Lung Cancer
By Caroline Wilbert
It is widely accepted that tobacco smoke causes most lung cancer deaths. A new study shows that tobacco smoke — including secondhand smoke — may also contribute to non-lung cancers more than previously thought.
Researchers used data from the National Center for Health Statistics and concluded that tobacco smoke may have led to more than 70% of cancer deaths among Massachusetts men in 2003.
“This study provides support for the growing understanding among researchers that smoking is a cause of many more cancer deaths besides lung cancer,” says researcher Bruce Leistikow, a University of California, Davis associate adjunct professor of public health sciences, in a news release. “The full impacts of tobacco smoke, including secondhand smoke, have been overlooked in the rush to examine such potential cancer factors as diet and environmental contaminants. As it turns out, much of the answer was probably smoking all along.”
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