Smoking is a worldwide health problem. With over 1 billion people smoking worldwide, one in three adults smoke that is estimated. The majority of these smokers exist in countries on the low end to the middle of the socioeconomic spectrum. About 80% of this majority live in low and middle-income countries. Worldwide, the total number of smokers is expected to keep on increasing each year. Social class, historical era, and culture are included in variation of the worldwide popularity of tobacco use.

Historically, The rich people smoke to time pass. But in recent decades, this trend has changed dramatically. It seems that in wealthier countries, financially advantaged men have been smoking less in recent times. Cigarettes are very harmful to your health. Cigarettes contains nicotine, which is just as addictive as heroine, and the additives, compliments of your friendly tobacco companies, are carcinogens (cause cancer).

Health effect of Tobacco:

The circumstances, mechanisms, and factors of tobacco consumption on human health are the health effects of tobacco. Tobacco smoking has been studied more extensively than any other form of consumption and Epidemiological research have been focused primarily on it. In the United States and worldwide, tobacco is the single greatest cause of preventable death. Tobacco utilize leads most commonly to diseases having an effect on the heart and lungs, with smoking, tobacco is being a major risk factor for heart attacks, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, and cancer (particularly lung cancer, cancers of the larynx and mouth, and pancreatic cancer).

Peripheral vascular disease and hypertension are also caused by it. The greater risk of these diseases are caused by the earlier and the higher level of tar content in the tobacco filled cigarettes. Cigarettes sold in developing nations tend to have higher tar content, and are less likely to be filtered, potentially increasing vulnerability to tobacco-related disease in these regions. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimate that tobacco caused 5.4 million deaths in 2004[6] and 100 million deaths over the course of the 20th century. Similarly, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes tobacco use as “the single most important preventable risk to human health in developed countries and an important cause of premature death worldwide.”

Cigarette smoking is the major cause of:

• Emphysema
• Lung cancer
• Chronic bronchitis
• Heart disease and stroke

Some Quick Smoking Facts:

• Cigarette smoking has been identified as the most important source of preventable morbidity and premature mortality in the United States and the world.
• Smoking-related diseases cause an estimated 440,000 American deaths each year.
• Smoking costs the United States over $150 billion annually in health care costs.
• A 2004 Study by the CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion found that cigarette smoke contains over 4,800 chemicals, 69 of which are known to cause cancer.
• Women account for 39 percent of all smoking deaths.

Smoking Facts and Tobacco Statistics

• There are 1.1 billion smokers in the world today, and if current trends continue, that number is expected to increase to 1.6 billion by the year 2025.
• China is home to 300 million smokers who consume approximately 1.7 trillion cigarettes a year, or 3 million cigarettes a minute.
• It’s estimated that trillions of filters, filled with toxic chemicals from tobacco smoke, make their way into our environment as discarded waste yearly.
• While they may look like white cotton, cigarette filters are made of very thin fibers of a plastic called cellulose acetate. A cigarette filter can take between 18 months and 10 years to decompose.
• Worldwide, approximately 10 million cigarettes are purchased a minute, 15 billion are sold each day, and upwards of 5 trillion are produced and used on an annual basis.
• Five trillion cigarette filters weigh approximately 2 billion pounds.
• A typical manufactured cigarette contains approximately 8 or 9 milligrams of nicotine, while the nicotine content of a cigar is 100 to 200 milligrams, with some as high as 400 milligrams.
• There is enough nicotine in four or five cigarettes to kill an average adult if ingested whole. Most smokers take in only one or two milligrams of nicotine per cigarette however, with the remainder being burned off.
• Ambergris, otherwise known as whale vomit is one of the hundreds of possible additives used in manufactured cigarettes.
• Benzene is a known cause of acute myeloid leukemia, and cigarette smoke is a major source of benzene exposure. Among U.S. smokers, 90 percent of benzene exposures come from cigarettes.
• The smoke from a smoldering cigarette often contains higher concentrations of the toxins found in cigarette smoke than exhaled smoke does.
• Kids are still picking up smoking at the alarming rate of 3,000 a day in the U.S., and 80,000 to 100,000 a day worldwide.
• Radioactive lead and polonium are both present in low levels in cigarette smoke.
• Hydrogen cyanide, one of the toxic byproducts present in cigarette smoke, was used as a genocidal chemical agent during World War II.
• Secondhand smoke contains more than 50 cancer-causing chemical compounds, 11 of which are known to be Group 1 carcinogens.
• Worldwide, one in five teens age 13 to 15 smoke cigarettes.
• Approximately one quarter of the youth alive in the Western Pacific Region (East Asia and the Pacific) today will die from tobacco use.
• Tobacco use is expected to claim one billion lives this century unless serious anti-smoking efforts are made on a global level.
• Half of all long-term smokers will die a tobacco-related death.
• Every eight seconds, a human life is lost to tobacco use somewhere in the world. That translates to approximately 5 million deaths annually.

Cigarette Smoking Statistics:

An estimated 24.8 million men (23.1 percent) and 21.1 million women (18.3 percent) are smokers in the United States. These people are at higher risk of heart attack and stroke. The latest estimates for persons age 18 and older show:

• Among whites, 23.5 percent of men and 20.6 percent of women smoke (2008).
• 9.9 percent of Asian adults smoke.
• 24.3 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native adults smoke.
• Among blacks, 25.6 percent of men and 17.8 percent of women smoke.
• Among Hispanics, 20.7 percent of men and 10.7 percent of women smoke.

Fore more information about Cigarette facts and Statistics, visit URL: http://listverse.com/2009/01/11/30-fascinating-cigarette-smoking-facts/

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