The motto of World No Tobacco Day 2022 is ‘Tobacco, a threat to our environment’, and this year its objective is for all of us to realize that smoking not only constitutes a serious threat to our health, but that its cultivation, production and distribution have an enormous environmental impact that is added to that of the waste generated by their consumption.
Eight million people die each year from diseases directly related to tobacco and, as indicated by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the activity of the tobacco industry “poisons the water, the soil, the beaches and the streets of the cities with chemicals, toxic waste, cigarette butts, including microplastics, and e-cigarette residue.”
According to this organization, 600,000,000 trees have been felled and 22,000,000,000 liters of water have been used to make cigarettes, and 84,000,000 tons of CO2 emissions have been released into the atmosphere (which raises the temperature of the Earth). And damage to the environment also negatively affects human health.
Smoking is the number one preventable cause of death.
Tobacco is the cause of 25% of malignant tumors and a key risk factor in at least 18 types of cancer (oropharynx, larynx, lung, bladder, kidney, prostate, cervix, pancreas…). It is also responsible for 80% of lung cancer deaths and 30% of cancer deaths in general. In fact, and according to the World Health Organization, it is the leading cause of preventable death in the world.
“Nicotine replacement therapy is the treatment that has the most experience when it comes to treating smokers so that they stop being so”
The Spanish Society of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery (SEORL-CCC) has warned that 85% of laryngeal tumors are also a consequence of tobacco use, while a study published in the European Journal of Cancer in 2020 shows that In Europe, one in five cancer cases is attributable to tobacco, which means that 750,000 malignant tumors appear because of this substance. Of these, half affect the lung and 15% are head and neck cancers, which are located mainly in the lip, oral cavity, pharynx and larynx. Spain has one of the highest incidence rates of laryngeal cancer in the world.
Smoking cessation treatments
All treatments that have demonstrated their efficacy and safety to quit smoking should be financed by the National Health System, as stated by the Spanish Society of Pulmonology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR). “Nicotine replacement therapy is the treatment that has the most experience in treating smokers so that they quit. And it is the safest of all those available, so it is essential that it be financed”, said Dr. Carlos Jiménez-Ruiz, head of the Specialized Tobacco Addiction Unit at the San Carlos Clinical Hospital in Madrid, during a event organized by said Unit to address this issue, as well as the role played by different health professionals to help patients quit smoking.
The specialist has highlighted that the health professionals of Medicine, Pharmacy and Nursing are “key to the control of smoking” and has pointed out that setting an example by not smoking “is the best way to show the population that tobacco damages health ”, and explained that in addition to advising smokers to give up tobacco, they can help them to quit smoking with the pharmacological treatment available to those who want to make the effort to try.
“Up to 60-70% of smokers who use e-cigarettes to quit end up becoming dual smokers”
These people often also consult pharmacists, so they can “provide information and even prescribe treatment with nicotine replacement therapy. Nursing can also give health advice on quitting tobacco use and prescribe this treatment, which is therefore the most accessible of all those available”, concludes the expert.
Patient associations must help prevent smoking and protect non-smokers from tobacco smoke, according to Dr. Jiménez-Ruiz, who stressed that “it is essential that patient associations get involved in the problem of smoking and in the decisions to be made regarding its control, the protection of the health of non-smokers against air polluted by tobacco smoke and regarding the prevention of smoking in our young people”.
Risks of the electronic cigarette as a method to quit smoking
When electronic cigarettes began to be marketed, many smokers decided to use them to give up this habit little by little, or to replace conventional tobacco with something they considered less harmful, or less addictive. And although some studies have since pointed to its effectiveness in quitting smoking, many others have shown its possible health dangers, from an increased risk of depression or erectile dysfunction, to a greater chance of experiencing COVID symptoms or suffering from a change in mood. inflammatory state of the brain.
The Spanish Society of Pulmonology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR) has prepared a document to present its position in this regard in which it warns that “electronic cigarettes and tobacco products to heat are addictive, are not safe and do not serve as a method of damage reduction”. “Harm reduction is a false solution, as it represents a commercial strategy of the tobacco industry to increase its sales by making tobacco control difficult, since it keeps smokers in tobacco consumption and prevents them from making serious quit attempts. In addition, these products are a gateway to adolescents in tobacco”.
The two main conclusions contained in the report are that “harm reduction strategies are ineffective methods for tobacco control, they keep smokers in tobacco consumption and they represent an opportunity for the tobacco industry in the sale of its new products , such as heated tobacco and the electronic cigarette”. And that “heated tobacco and electronic cigarettes, despite having less toxins than conventional tobacco, does not imply that they do less harm, so a regulation identical to that applied to it is necessary.”
In the document, the SEPAR experts state that there is sufficient scientific evidence that “it is possible to quit smoking with currently available tobacco addiction treatments”, while, on the contrary, “there is no proven scientific evidence to show that electronic cigarettes are effective for smoking cessation.
And they state that “therapeutic interventions based on psychological counseling and pharmacological treatment are the most effective in helping smokers to quit” and “triple and sometimes quadruple the chances of succeeding in a quit attempt in compared to when they are not used. In contrast, up to 60-70% of smokers who use e-cigarettes to quit end up becoming dual smokers.”
Sources: Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Spanish Society of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery (SEORL-CCC), Specialized Smoking Unit of the San Carlos Clinical Hospital in Madrid, Spanish Society of Pulmonology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR)
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