One in three young Chinese men will die from smoking, study says

[MADem]

A participant warms up for this year's Beijing Marathon, with a cigarette

A new study has warned that a third of all men currently under the age of 20 in China will eventually die prematurely if they do not give up smoking.
The research, published in The Lancet medical journal, says two-thirds of men in China now start to smoke before 20.
Around half of those men will die from the habit, it concludes.
The scientists conducted two nationwide studies, 15 years apart, covering hundreds of thousands of people.
In 2010, around one million people in China died from tobacco usage. But researchers say that if current trends continue, that will double to two million people - mostly men - dying every year by 2030, making it a "growing epidemic of premature death".
While more than half of Chinese men smoke, only 2.4% of Chinese women do.

More at link....


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34483448

[SheilaT]

1. I wonder why the

huge discrepancy between male and female smoking rates. I suppose it's basic gender nonsense. I know that very much before WWII in this country "nice" women didn't smoke, but female smoking rates skyrocketed with the war, although they never got as high as men's.

[KittyWampus]

3. I don't know numbers/statistical analysis very well. Could higher proportion of males overall

throughout population influence this?

[SheilaT]

7. The disparity between males and females there

is vastly lower than the disparity between male and female smokers.

I'm pretty sure it's cultural attitudes. You'll see the change in our culture in this area if you read old novels or watch old movies. Many men smoke. Few women do. Actually, the suffrage movement was probably instrumental in getting women to think they deserved all the rights and privileges men had, which naturally included smoking.

I can recall reading something in the early 1970's that noted a great difference between men and woman's rates of lung cancer, and directly attributed that to different rates of smoking. The same article noted that women had taken up smoking in numbers close to that of men, and so to expect women's lung cancer rates to rise significantly in coming years because so many more women smoked, and it typically took twenty or more years of smoking to develop lung cancer.

Check out these two links:
http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/data/men.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/data/women.htm

What's really interesting is that many more women die from lung cancer than from breast cancer.

[MADem]

10. Lois Griffin, to her son Chris, giving him dating advice: "If she smokes, she pokes!"

Seth McFarlane may have been snarking when he wrote that, but there has always been a cadre of people that applied a moral measure to the behavior and felt that it was an activity for "fast" ( ) girls.

[stevenleser]

18. LMAO. I literally did when I read your title.

[alphafemale]

2. Do they even get the warnings about the risks there?

I somehow doubt it.

[hifiguy]

4. I spent a month in China in the summer of '13.

An astoundingly high percentage of men smoke like chimneys, at least in the places where I was (Shanghai, Hangzhou).

[KittyWampus]

5. When my Dad was there in late 80's he commented on how many smoked-

even more than we remember from the 50's here in the states.

That said, air quality in some parts of China is very, VERY bad now.

So lung cancer could very well be a cause of deaths… but government prefers to shift blame to personal choice/cigarettes???

Just positing the concept.

[virgogal]

6. I'm 80. I'm from a generation where roughly 2/3 of us smoked.

We started in high school.

In my circle of friends we started dying in our 70s.

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.

[SheilaT]

8. I believe the peak year for smoking was something like 1955

and as I recall the statistic was that 2/3 of all adult men, and 1/2 of all adult women smoked. A slightly misleading statistic, and I'm sure you'll back me up when I point out that back then the percentage of smokers older than 60 or so would have been noticeably less than in the 21-45 or so age group.

I'm a bit younger than you, 67. While I was growing up, almost everyone's parents smoked -- we typically made ashtrays in elementary school as Mother's Day gifts, but I don't recall anyone's grandparents smoking. I know some of them would have, but vanishingly few.

[MADem]

11. Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette!!!

[SheilaT]

12. That's of course no where near the number of cigarettes

smoked in that show, which I absolutely love, by the way. What I do like (as annoying as it can be) is how very accurately most of that era is portrayed. Especially the smoking.

I'm a bit younger than the main characters, but I well remember that entire time. "Everyone" smoked. Women were routinely shut out of any kind of power. The men in charge had all been in WWII or the Korean War. It's not played up very strongly, but the gap between those men and the slightly younger ones who had not served actually mattered. This is before the Vietnam War matters, and the guys who would fight there didn't have a presence in the world of Mad Men. Great series.

[MADem]

13. I enjoyed the series, too--it hit a lot of nails right on the head. nt

[virgogal]

14. You are right.

Many of our fathers smoked---- but few of the mothers smoked.

I was 20 in 1955 and I knew few non-smokers in my age group. We spent much time in smoke-filled rooms.

[MADem]

16. Did you quit? I'm guessing yes, since you said "smoked." Or maybe you just never took up the

demon tabaccky?

I admire anyone who quits--that's a tough struggle. It's a very addictive substance, especially the way it's packaged by Big Tobacco.

I suspect it was less addictive when the native peoples used it--I don't recall seeing any Remington sculptures of Indians sucking on pipes or cigars while riding through the countryside on horseback....!

[virgogal]

17. No,I still smoke but much less than I used to.

The coffee/cigarette thing in the A.M. is a delight for me.

I'll never quit now---- that drives my doctor nuts but she's known me for years,and tolerates me.

None of my 6 kids smoke---and none of my grandchildren do.

After years of following the rules I finally feel like a rebel.

[MADem]

22. Well, "Keep it down to a dull roar!" as the adults used to say when I was a kid!!

If you can't quit, so long as you don't do too much, you can at least mitigate the damage.

Have you ever tried one of those electronic things?


FWIW, I knew an old lady in a nursing home (she was in the same wing as a relative I used to visit, years ago, when "nursing homes" were a thing--now they're much nicer and homey and they call them something else) who used to have a cigarette every day--she was, like, 95 or 6 or so. She just had the one, usually in mid afternoon, and my did she enjoy it.

Of course, they let people smoke all over hell way back then--the staff, the residents, the visitors...it's amazing how many places people used to smoke! Now, I rarely see it--it's just not as popular, anymore.

Of course, some folks still smoke other stuff....!

[Liberal_in_LA]

9. Huge disparity in smoking by gender. Wow

[tblue37]

15. And the rest will die from breathing the air. nt

[restorefreedom]

19. btw tobacco companies

and nc senators are trying to tank the tpp because it doesn"t provide companies a means to fight health promoting or anti smoking measures in the signed countries

more corporate fun with tpp


http://thehill.com/policy/finance/256311-tobacco-carve-out-sparks-bid-to-sink-tpp

hope these young guys quit before its too late...

[MADem]

20. Amazing how wingnuts and progressives can find a common cause. Who knew? nt

[restorefreedom]

21. just when we think we have seen it all......nt

[madville]

23. Similar to obesity in the U.S.

35% of American adults are obese and will likely experience shortened lifespans due to obesity related conditions. Recent studies show obesity cuts lifespan up to 8 years and can cut "healthy" years by up to 19.