Small smokers: stop!

Small smokers: stop!

You smoke? Not, just two or three cigarettes per day. Today still, the people who smoke very little daily, are hardly regarded as smokers. However, the health risks exist as of one to four cigarettes.
The risks of the nicotinism for health are well-known and they increase proportionally with the number of fume cigarettes each day. But very few studies related to the “small smokers”, those which smoke daily one to four cigarettes.
Are they with the shelter of the risks which watch for “truths smokers”? From how much cigarettes the risk does appear? A Norwegian study brings the answers to these questions to us.
This one carried on a population of more than 43.000 men and women, old from 35 to 49 years, having taken part in a tracing routine of the cardiovascular risks in the Seventies. After a follow-up until 2002, the deaths of all types were recorded (cardiovascular, cancers, of which lung cancers, etc). Also let us note that the ex-smokers were excluded from the test. The smokers were divided in six categories: from 1 to 4 cigarettes per day, from 5 to 9,10 to 14,15 to 19,20 to 24 and more than 25. And it is there the characteristic of this study, since in the majority of the other analyzes on this subject the weakest group of consumption was from 1 to 9, even from 1 to 15 cigarettes per day.

The authors note that the duration of the nicotinism increased with the number of cigarettes. The cholesterol levels total and triglycerides also increase in the two sexes with the number of fume cigarettes. Conversely, the physical-activity decreases with the extent of the nicotinism.

The subjects which smoke one to four cigarettes per day present a risk of death per ischemic cardiac disease triples compared to the people not having never smoked. Cancer deaths of the lung are also increased in this population: the risk triples at the small smokers and quintuple at the small smoky ones…
As for the risk of death all confused causes, it is multiplied respectively per 1,57 and 1,47 for the men and the women.

All in all, for all the diseases and all the levels of nicotinism, the risk of death is weaker among women than at the men, except for the cardiovascular diseases and lung cancer.

In practice, there does not exist threshold below which it is possible to smoke without risk. The small smokers are thus not the shelter and are solicited to undertake a final adoption.
Whatever the age, the duration of the nicotinism and its intensity, the stop of the tobacco is always beneficial.