Key facts

• Tobacco kills up to half of its users.
• Tobacco kills nearly 6 million people each year. More than five million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while more than 600 000 are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke. Unless urgent action is taken, the annual death toll could rise to more than eight million by 2030.
• Nearly 80% of the world's one billion smokers live in low- and middle-income countries.
• Consumption of tobacco products is increasing globally, though it is decreasing in some high-income and upper middle-income countries.

Leading cause of death, illness and impoverishment

The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced, killing nearly six million people a year. More than five million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while more than 600 000 are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke. Approximately one person dies every six seconds due to tobacco, accounting for one in 10 adult deaths. Up to half of current users will eventually die of a tobacco-related disease.

Nearly 80% of the more than one billion smokers worldwide live in low- and middle-income countries, where the burden of tobacco-related illness and death is heaviest.

Tobacco users who die prematurely deprive their families of income, raise the cost of health care and hinder economic development.

In some countries, children from poor households are frequently employed in tobacco farming to provide family income. These children are especially vulnerable to "green tobacco sickness", which is caused by the nicotine that is absorbed through the skin from the handling of wet tobacco leaves.

Tobacco

 

Fact sheet N°339
Updated July 2013

 

read more at World Health Organisation http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs339/en/

Wow. We lucky First Worlders think we are beating big tobacco...(at least I thought we were) were actually they have just re targeted their resources on the developing world.

 

Thanks for the info.

while more than 600 000 are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke

 

That's so sad and kind of scary!

It really is scary reading, and whilst people remain smokers these numbers will only continue to grow and grow because the addicted smoker will read an article like above and immediately dismiss the words they see, "it will never happen to me" will echo in their heads, we all know this as we all were once that addicted person, but we realised we could break free and take control of our lives again.

Bump

Wow.  It's just crazy. 

I glanced at some non smoking app, and I do not know how accurate it is, but it says 3,414,000 have died from tobacco related diseases since I quit. 

There are several videos on youtube to peek at of smoker's coughs, if I ever begin to remotely romance the cig.

It really is scary reading, and whilst people remain smokers these numbers will only continue to grow and grow because the addicted smoker will read an article like above and immediately dismiss the words they see, "it will never happen to me" will echo in their heads, we all know this as we all were once that addicted person, but we realised we could break free and take control of our lives again.

  

Wow.  It's just crazy. 

I glanced at some non smoking app, and I do not know how accurate it is, but it says 3,414,000 have died from tobacco related diseases since I quit. 

There are several videos on youtube to peek at of smoker's coughs, if I ever begin to remotely romance the cig.

Worth remembering that the 50% will die of a smoking related illness UNDERstates the issue. My father was killed by an aortic aneurysm. This was genetic not smoking related.

 

Here is the thing though, the aneurysm was successfully dealt with by the surgeons. However, they were unable to get my Dad off a ventilator, and he was killed by an infection.

 

I wonder if 40 Rothmans a day had something to do with not being able to get off the ventilator?

 

Bet your ass they did.

 

My Dad bet his life on being in the 50% not killed by smoking.

 

At 59 years old he lost.

 

My Mum lost too. I lost too.

 

If you are still betting...think on that. Not on what you might lose, but what those who love you might lose.

Bump