More smoking-related diseases recognized by the U.S. government

Katy B. Olson | January 27, 2014

Add ectopic pregnancy, erectile dysfunction, diabetes, and colorectal and liver cancers to the deadly laundry list of illnesses brought about by cigarette smoking. Dr. Boris D. Lushniak, the U.S. acting surgeon general, recently expanded the litany of illnesses that cigarette smoking “has been scientifically proven to cause,” according to the New York Times. The newly added conditions join the most commonly known diseases associated with smoking— namely lung cancer and heart disease.

Dr. Lushniak’s report names other health conditions — among them, tuberculosis, vision loss, rheumatoid arthritis, weakened immunity, and even cleft palates in children of female smokers. While cigarette smoking has long been associated with the conditions, this report is the first time that the federal government has recognized that smoking causes them. Other additions to the list of smoking-related illnesses include cervical cancer, added in 2004, and bladder cancer, which was added in 1990.

From Shannon Holman.

To be clear, the illnesses listed aren’t necessarily always caused by smoking, but, as the Times reports, “some of the cases would not have happened without smoking.” While the analysis isn’t legally binding, it is considered a scientific-research standard for policymakers and researchers alike. Though the report might not be shocking to experts and researchers, it is meant, in part, to educate the public about the health dangers of cigarette smoking.

The report comes fifty years after the surgeon general’s report of 1964, in which the government established, for the first time, that smoking causes lung cancer. At the time that report was released, fifty percent of adult men and a third of women were smokers. The report led to a decrease in smoking: in 1965, approximately 43 percent of adults smoked, and, in 2012, about 18 percent of adults smoked. However, that decrease has stalled in recent years, and smoking is the top cause of premature death in the U.S., taking over 400,000 lives yearly.

Smoking plays varied roles in the illnesses it causes. For example, it does cause the majority of lung cancer cases, yet only a minimal percentage of colorectal and liver cancers. (An active smoker is 25 times as likely to develop lung cancer as a person who has never smoked; yet an active smoker is only 1.5 times as likely to develop liver cancer as the person who has never smoked.) Still, even that connection is important. As Neal Freedman, an epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute, said, “It’s a fairly modest association, but because so many people smoke, it’s still an important cause of these cancers.”

Lastly, one of the report’s most shocking revelations: lung cancer risk is much greater today than in previous decades, despite the fact that today’s smokers smoke fewer cigarettes than in the past. The risk is due to changes in cigarette filter design. The upswing is astonishing — in 1959, female smokers were 2.7 times as likely as women who never smoked to develop lung cancer, but by 2010, women’s risk had increased by nearly tenfold. Male smokers’ risk doubled over that same time period.