A study was recently published in the British Journal of Cancer that confirmed and reinforced a link we’re all familiar with: smoking causes greatly increased risk of cancer.
But what some people don’t realize is that the risk doesn’t just involve cancer of the throat, lungs, and mouth:
Women smokers are more likely to have cancer of blood, immune system, and bone marrow — deadly cancers not usually associated with smoking. — Click to Tweet.
For example, new research has uncovered that women smokers are at twice the risk of Hodgkin’s lymphoma and some types of bone marrow cancer.
The Research
Some interesting research was recently published by Cancer Research UK, which owns the BJC. The research was extensive, and led to conclusive findings.
Over 1.3 million middle-aged women living in UK were tracked for an average of 10 years before these results were published. The research was part of a landmark study called the Million Women study. Over the course of the tracking, 9000 women developed leukemia, cancers of the immune system, or bone marrow cancers. Six in every 1000 non-smoking women developed cancers of these types, but eight in every 1000 smoking women developed these cancers.
The important implications of this research are the following: people usually consider smoking a risk factor for only mouth-, throat-, and lung-related cancers, but they need to know that smoking is a generalized risk factor for all cancers.
Legislative Reactions
Cancer Research UK and Jean King, the center’s director of tobacco control, are pushing for new legislation to limit smoking marketers. Under their new proposals, the government would enforce a “plain packaging” rule for cigarette packs.
The plain packaging would involve “replacing the slickly designed, brightly coloured packaging with packs of standard size, shape and colour [that] will give millions of children one less reason to start smoking.”
The idea of the new packaging rule is that health warnings should be clear and obvious to all smokers who buy cigarettes, and cigarette companies should also have limitations on attracting younger smokers. The most important consideration is to limit the appeal of cigarettes to young people, which will prevent a whole new generation of addicted smokers.
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