[Trends in and effects of smoking in the world]

Smoking is undoubtedly a major cause of illness and premature death. It is responsible for as much as 90% of all cases of lung cancer, 75% of chronic bronchitis and emphysema and 25% of cases of ischaemic heart disease in men under 65 years, as well as for a number of other types of cancer, pregnancy complications and more frequent respiratory ailments in children from smoking families. In South-East Asia, tobacco chewing is estimated to cause about 90% of the deaths due to oral cancer. Worldwide, cigarette consumption per adult has increased only very slightly, by 7.1%, between 1970 and 1985. It fell in many industrial countries, e.g. by 9% in the United States of America and Canada, 6% in Australia and New Zealand, and by as much as 25% in the United Kingdom. On the contrary, in many developing countries adult per capita cigarette consumption has increased markedly, e.g. by 42% in Africa, 24% in Latin America and 22% in Asia. In many industrialized countries, the percentage of smokers has started to fall in recent years. For instance, in the United Kingdom, the percentage of male smokers fell from 65% to 45% and that of female smokers from 45% to 34%. In the United States, male prevalence decreased from 54% to 29% and female prevalence from 36% to 24%. In Norway, male smoking prevalence decreased from 53% to 42%, in Australia from 72% to 33% and in Canada from 44% to 35%. On the contrary, in developing countries prevalence of smoking is frequently higher than in the affluent countries. In Tunisia, for instance, 60% of the men smoke. Smoking-related diseases account for 7% of all deaths in Chile and Ecuador and 24% in Venezuela, 30% in Cuba, 10% in France, 17% in Canada, 15-20% in the United Kingdom, and up to 35% among white South-Africans. It has been calculated that 600,000 new cases of lung cancer occur worldwide every year, most of them due to smoking. Projections show that by the year 2000 the yearly number of new lung-cancer cases worldwide may be as high as 2 million. 500,000 deaths are attributable to smoking in Europe, at least 630,000 in India, 10,000 in South Africa, 23,000 in Australia, 30,000 in Canada, 19,000 in Venezuela and about 400,000 in the United States in 1980. The hypermorbidity of smokers causes an extra need for medical care.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)