The relationship between lung cancer and smoking

Over the past half century, a large number of epidemiological studies around the world have confirmed that smoking is the main factor causing lung cancer. Experts believe that the amount of smoking is directly proportional to the incidence of lung cancer. Long-term and heavy smoking can lead to a continuous increase in the incidence of lung cancer. The reason why smoking can cause lung cancer is mainly because cigarettes produce a lot of carcinogens when they burn, such as dimethylnitrosamine, benzopyrene, dimethylbenzene anthracene, etc.

According to statistics from the World Health Organization, men aged >45 who smoke >400 cigarettes per year are at high risk of lung cancer. It can be concluded that the more people smoke and the longer they smoke, the higher the incidence of lung cancer. In particular, the incidence of lung cancer among passive smokers has continued to rise in recent years, which has attracted widespread attention. Smoking harms not only the health of the smoker himself, but also the health of other people around him due to passive smoking. In particular, the smoke exhaled by smokers contains a large amount of endotoxins that can cause asthma and bronchitis. This substance will seriously affect the respiratory health of passive smokers. Experts point out that the risk of children suffering from respiratory diseases is closely related to the degree of their parents' smoking.

Smoking is the main risk factor for lung cancer. According to statistics, about 80% of male and 75% of female lung cancer patients in my country are smokers, and another 17% are passive smokers. Experts believe that the age of starting to smoke, the length of smoking, the amount of smoking per day, the type of tobacco smoked, the amount of tar and nicotine contained in the tobacco, and whether to use filters are closely related to the incidence of lung cancer. The incidence of lung cancer for those who smoke 20 cigarettes a day is 15 times that of non-smokers, and 48 times that of those who smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day. The incidence of lung cancer begins to decline after 5 to 10 years of quitting smoking. This also shows that quitting smoking is indeed one of the effective measures to prevent lung cancer.

Of course, objectively speaking, it does not mean that "smoking will definitely cause lung cancer". In real life, there are many people who have smoked all their lives but have never developed lung cancer. Since the pathogenesis of lung cancer is still not very clear, we can only say that "smoking can increase the incidence of lung cancer." Although lung cancer is not necessarily completely equal to smoking, the two are closely related. Long-term and heavy smoking is definitely the main factor inducing lung cancer, especially in recent years, the incidence of lung cancer is tending to be younger, so we remind young people to stay away from tobacco and cherish life.