Despite the many awareness campaigns that inform about its dangers, tobacco remains a social problem and the figures revealed by regular studies are always more worrying. The latest, published in the scientific journal The Lancet , makes the following observation:one death in 10 in the world is due to tobacco, which represents approximately 6.4 million deaths per year. Half of these deaths are in just four countries:India, China, the United States and Russia. To reach this conclusion, the habits of smokers in 195 countries were observed between 1990 and 2015, and the results are clear:smoking is the 2nd risk factor for premature death and disease in the world. Unfortunately, population growth has led to an increase in the number of smokers, which were 870.4 million in 1990 and 933.1 million in 2015. One in 4 men would be a smoker (25%), compared to 1 in 20 women (5.4 %).
The top 10 countries with the most smokers in 2015 include China, India, Indonesia, the United States, Russia, Bangladesh, Japan, Brazil, Germany and the Philippines. They alone represent nearly two-thirds of smokers worldwide (63.4%). Brazil was, however, the only nation to experience a considerable drop in smoking:between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of smokers fell from 29% to 12.5%, and female smokers from 18.5% to 8%. One of the authors of the study, Dr Gakidou, insists on the fact that initiatives must be taken urgently:"The balance sheet will remain important as long as there are no new concerted policies, that will be enforced and enforced, nor continued political will to neutralize commercial interests […] Success is not impossible, but it requires laws which must be categorically enforced .
Remember that there are different ways to quit smoking, and the benefits are of course just as numerous.
