We all know smoking can take a deadly toll on health, but new research suggest the habit is responsible for even more illnesses and deaths than we thought.
The findings suggest the current number of deaths caused by cigarettes smoking annually (480,000) as estimated by the 2014 Surgeon General's report is too low, and the rate of mortality is in fact much higher, the American Cancer Society reported.
Smoking is currently linked to deaths from the 21 diseases including: "12 types of cancer, six categories of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD], and pneumonia including influenza," the researchers reported. These new findings suggest smoking could also be linked to a variety of other fatal diseases.
To make their findings the researcher looked at data from 421,378 men and 532,651 women followed from 2000 to 2011, over the course of the study there were 181,377 deaths, 16,475 of which were occurred in current smokers.
The data suggested a 17 percent increased risk of death among smokers that could not be attributed to causes currently known to be linked to the act of smoking. The analysis uncovered 14 causes of death that were most likely correlated with smoking, even though they are not currently recognized as such. The team determined smoking could double the risk of death from causes such as "kidney failure, reduced blood flow to the intestines, high blood pressure, infections, and various respiratory diseases other than COPD," the study stated. Smoking was also linked to a higher risk of breast cancer, prostate cancer, and cancer of unknown primary site.
"In our study, smokers had higher death rates from many diseases not currently established as caused by smoking, and we think there is strong evidence that smoking is likely to cause some of these diseases. If our results hold true for the U.S. as a whole, about 60,000 more Americans than we thought may be killed each year by cigarette smoking," said Brian Carter,the lead author on the study and an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society. "For perspective, this additional number of deaths outnumbers deaths from motor vehicle accidents, influenza, or liver cirrhosis."
The findings were published Feb. 11 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
