A new study has found that one in three young men in China ages 20 and below may die from smoking tobacco if they do not quit.
The study, conducted by researchers at Oxford University, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and the Chinese Center for Disease Control, included hundreds and thousands of people and showed that tobacco deaths reached 1 million in 2010 and are expected to reach 2 million by 2030 if Chinese men's smoking habits do not change.
"The key to avoid this huge wave of deaths is cessation, and if you are a young man, don't start," study co-author Richard Peto said, according to the Associated Press.
The team also found that as cigarettes become easier to buy in China, more and more people smoke at a younger age.
"It is difficult, because there is a lot of pressure at work, so I smoke to alleviate the tension. At the same time our country does not provide good support for people who want to quit. I have tried electronic cigarettes, but I think that is perhaps worse," said Wei Bin, a 32-year-old office worker in Beijing.
The study also showed that males who started smoking before turning 20 have twice the mortality rate as those who do not smoke. They are more prone to diseases linked to smoking such as lung cancer, stroke and heart disease, according to CNN.
While taxes and sales for tobacco are the major sources of revenue for China and believed to be an ancient part of Chinese culture, the country is implementing a smoking ban in Beijing to reduce the risk of health implications. The law is accompanied by sanctions being named and shamed on a government website on the third offense, CNN reported.
On the other hand, women have now been reported to be smoking less than those in the past.
"Conversely, the women of working age in China now smoke much less than the older generation. About 10 percent of the women born in the 1930s smoked, but only about one percent of those born in the 1960s did so," said study said, according to AFP.
The study was published recently in the British medical journal The Lancet.
