Smoking cigarettes can cause even more health problems than previously known, including liver and colon cancer, blindness and diabetes, said a major US government report on Friday. Top US health officials gathered at the White House to announce the latest Surgeon General's findings on the health consequences of smoking, five decades after the first landmark report of its kind alerted the public that smoking caused lung cancer. "Amazingly, 50 years in we are still finding out new ways that tobacco maims and kills people," said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Thomas Frieden. "Tobacco is even worse than we knew it was."
Active smoking is now known to be a cause of 13 different cancers, as well as diabetes and age-related macular degeneration, said the report. Smoking remains the leading preventable cause of premature death in the United States, killing nearly half a million Americans a year.
Previous Surgeon Generals' reports have found that nicotine is addictive, that smoking impacts nearly every organ of the body, and that there is no risk-free level of exposure to second-hand smoke.
Last week's research showed that despite a cut in the smoking rate globally, the number of smokers in the world has climbed from 721 million in 1980 to 967 million in 2012 due to population growth and the gaining popularity of cigarettes in the developing world.
AFP
