The average cost of a pack of cigarettes is about 5 euros.
To most of us this may not seem like much, but let’s think about it more, how much is our health worth? Is it worth less than 5 euros?
I think we all agree that health is priceless.
Each of us is aware that smoking is harmful. Smoking, that is, addiction to tobacco products, remains a worldwide problem and increases the risk of developing cancer such as adenocarcinoma in the lungs.
How does it cause cancer?
Smoking causes various heart and lung diseases, is the leading cause of cancer in the world, and is directly correlated with 15 types of cancer; the risk increases with the combination of alcohol consumption and smoking.
The strong link between tobacco products and human cancers stems from a powerful alliance between nicotine, which is not carcinogenic but leads to addiction to tobacco products, and carcinogens.
Smoke contains about 7000 chemical components, some of which, such as aromatic amines, are also present in secondhand smoke and are directly related to cancer. The harmful components are formed during the combustion process, and in addition to reaching the lungs, they are also transported via the bloodstream to every organ.
The carcinogenic components cause DNA damage, resulting in mutations to oncogenes or oncosuppressors. In this way the control mechanisms of normal cell growth are lost.
Let’s quickly return to the initial premise: We all know that smoking is bad for us, but sometimes we think that only people who smoke frequently and use “heavy” cigarettes are really at risk of developing this disease.
So even “light” and occasional smoking causes cancer?
Yes, even smoking less than one cigarette a day increases the risk of developing this disease compared to people who have never smoked. There is no safe level of smoking, and even secondhand smoke is a health detriment, as stated on packages “smoking harms you and those around you“.
The heated tobacco cigarettes
To date, it is rare not to have heard of or seen them, since the use of these products has increased significantly in recent years. This increase is also due to a distorted perception about their harmfulness; in fact one in three smokers think these products are less harmful than traditional cigarettes.
The heated-tobacco cigarettes, such as IQOS*, have a similar amount of nicotine as ordinary cigarettes, while the level of toxic substances may be different and does not necessarily result in a lower risk but simply different.
These devices, compared to classic cigarettes, release a higher content of certain harmful components, the health effects of which have yet to be fully understood.
In addition, to date, no studies are yet available to show that the use of these cigarettes reduces the risk of cancer compared with classic cigarettes.
In conclusion, we can say that prevention and cessation of tobacco product use are currently the first lines of defense against the occurrence of cancer. In the future as our understanding of the mechanisms by which all tobacco products cause cancer increases we may be able to develop more accurate and more easily adopted preventive approaches.
*this reference has no commercial purpose; it has been used for informational purposes only.
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