By IANS
Attn Eds: This story is embargo for publication at 3.30 a.m. Feb 14. Please guard against early publication. The organisers have permitted us to put this out Feb 13 afternoon.
New Delhi : One in five of all male deaths and one in 20 of all female deaths in India in the 30-69 age group will be caused by smoking in the 2010s, says a new study underlining that the country is in the midst of a “catastrophic epidemic”.
The findings, which will be published online in the Feb 13 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, said on an average, male beedi (leaf-rolled cigarettes) smokers lose about six years of life, while women smoking them lose about eight years.
Men who smoke cigarettes lose about 10 years, said the study, which claims to be the first nationally representative study of smoking in India.
“The extreme risks from smoking that we found surprised us, as smokers in India start at a later age than those in Europe or the US and smoke less,” said Prabhat Jha, director of the Centre for Global Health Research (CGHR), a research institute that is co-sponsored by St. Michael’s Hospital (Toronto) and University of Toronto.
“Our study shows that smoking will cause about one million deaths per year during the 2010s. It also shows that smokers in India have a particular risk of dying from tuberculosis,” Jha said here.
The research, which covered 1.1 million households in 6,671 areas – 4,436 rural and 2,235 urban – and took 10 years, showed that about 70 percent of the one million who will die would be before old age.
It means that 700,000 will be killed per year in the age group of 30-69 (600,000 men and 100,000 women), he said, adding, “India is in the midst of a catastrophic epidemic of smoking deaths. “The country has about 120 million smokers and more than one-third of men and five percent of women aged 30-69 smoke – mostly in the form of beedis.
Only two percent of adults in India have quit smoking, and often only after falling ill, the study ‘a nationally representative case – control study of smoking and death in India’ said.
“Half of the deaths due to smoking is among illiterate adults,” Jha said.
“Smoking kills mainly by tuberculosis, respiratory and heart diseases, but also by cancer,” he added.
About 66 percent of men and 13 percent of women who died from tuberculosis were smokers. About 62 percent of women aged 30 who smoke will die before they touch 69 as compared to only 38 percent of non-smokers, the study said.
Even smoking only a few (1-7) beedis a day raises the mortality risk by one-third, and smoking only a few (1-7) cigarettes a day, nearly doubles the risk, says the study.
“Substantial hazards were found both among educated and among illiterate adults and were found both in urban and in rural areas,” Jha said.
Over 70 percent of deaths due to smoking occur in middle age in India, which is much higher than in the US or Canada, Jha said.