smoking & lung cancer by ivan mendoza december 5, 2007

Smoking & Lung Cancer

by Ivan Mendoza

December 5, 2007


What is Lung Cancer?

Lung cancer is caused when some of the cells forming the tissues of the lungs grow abnormally and form a malignant tumor. The tumor might start in different parts of the lungs.

There are rarely noticeable symptoms in the early stages of lung cancer, and this is why early detection is difficult. In later stages, symptoms can include:

- A persistent cough that gets worse over time;

- Coughing up blood or increased amounts of mucus;

- Constant chest pain;

- Shortness of breath, wheezing or hoarseness;

- Repeated bouts of pneumonia or bronchitis;

- Swelling of the neck and face;

- Appetite loss, weight loss and fatigue.

Smoking & Lung Cancer?

Cigarette smoke inhibits and damages the normal cleaning process by which the lungs get rid of foreign and harmful particles. Smoke destroys an important cleansing layer in the lungs, which in turn causes a build-up of mucus. The result is "smokers' cough," an alternative method that the lungs take in attempting to clean themselves. The harmful cancer-producing particles in cigarette smoke are able to remain lodged in the mucus and develop into cancer tumors.


History of Cigarette Smoking

Tobacco has its origins in the lands of Mayan culture around 2000 B.C. First European people observed how indigenous smoked tobacco’s leafs in pipes and then they imitated them to bring the practice into Europe in the early part of XVI century. Almost all tobacco was consumed by pipe-smoking, chewing and snuffing until the beginning of XX century.


History of Cigarette Smoking

- 1912: In a monograph, Dr. Isaac Adler is the first to strongly suggest that lung cancer is related to smoking.

- 1928: German scientist proposes that lung cancers among non-smoking women could be caused by inhalation of their husbands' smoke.

- 1930: US has a per capita smoking rate of 977 cigarettes/year.

- 1930: 2,357 cases of lung cancer reported in the US. The lung cancer death rate in white males is 3.8 per 100,000.

- 1939-1945: WORLD WAR II. As part of the war effort, Roosevelt makes tobacco a protected crop. Cigarettes are included in GI's C-Rations. Tobacco companies send millions of free cigarettes to GI's, mostly the popular brands.

- 1948: UK: Sir Richard Doll has written: On I January 1948, "The First Reports on Smoking and Lung Cancer".

- 1948: Lung cancer has grown 5 times faster than other cancers since 1938; behind stomach cancer.

- 1950: Three important epidemiological studies provide the first powerful links between smoking and lung cancer. All of them the retrospective case-control method.

• In May 27, 1950 issue of JAMA, Morton Levin publishes first major study definitively linking smoking to lung cancer.

• In the same issue, "Tobacco Smoking as a Possible Etiologic Factor in Bronchiogenic Carcinoma: A Study of 684 Proved Cases," by Ernst L. Wynder and Evarts A. Graham of the United States, found that 96.5% of lung cancer patients interviewed were moderate heavy-to-chain-smokers.

• 1950-09:30: RICHARD DOLL and A BRADFORD HILL publish first report on Smoking and Carcinoma of the Lung in the British Medical Journal, finding that heavy smokers were fifty times as likely as nonsmokers to contract lung cancer. The cancer advisory Committee of the Ministry of Health says they have demonstrated an association, not a cause, and advise the Government to do nothing.


American Study & E. Wynder (1950)


Tobacco smoking as a possible etiologic factor in Bronchiogenic Carcinoma


British Study & R. Doll (1950)


Smoking and Carcinoma of the Lung


Another British Study & R. Doll (1954)


The Mortality in Doctors in relation to their smoking habits


The Same Study Over the years…


Cigarette Smoking and Lung Cancer in Canada


January 11, 1964 - Luther L. Terry, M.D., Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service, released the first report of the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health. Based on more than 7,000 articles related to smoking and disease already available, the Advisory Committee concluded that cigarette smoking is:

• A cause of lung cancer and laryngeal cancer in men.

• A probable cause of lung cancer in women.

• The most important cause of chronic bronchitis.

The release of the report was the first in a series of steps, still being taken more than 40 years later, to diminish the impact of tobacco use on the health of the American people. For several days, the report furnished newspaper headlines across the country and lead stories on television newscasts. During the more than 40 years that have elapsed since that report, individual citizens, private organizations, public agencies, and elected officials have pursued the Advisory Committee's call for "appropriate remedial action.“ Early on, the U.S. Congress adopted the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965 and the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969. These laws:

• Required a health warning on cigarette packages.

• Banned cigarette advertising in the broadcasting media.

• Called for an annual report on the health consequences of smoking.

Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health (1964)

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/history.htm“Strongest relationship, between cigarette smoking and health within the field of lung cancer. There is a very strong relationship and probably a causal relationship between heart disease and cigarette smoking.”

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/history.htm




Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health (1964)


Is that Report helping?


About Causation…

Video about Causality, Smoking & Lung Cancer

http://www.learner.org/vod/vod_window.html?pid=149




Tobacco is a dirty weed. I like it.

It satisfies no normal need. I like it.

It makes you thin, it makes you lean,

It takes the hair right off your bean.

It's the worst darn stuff I've ever seen.

I like it.

Graham Lee Hemminger, Penn State Froth, Tobacco (1915)

smoking & lung cancer by ivan mendoza december 5, 2007

Documents

cases of lung cancer

lung cancer patients

early stages of lung

harmful cancer

tobacco smoking

lung cancers

lung cancer death rate

stomach cancer