Forty years ago smoking was thought of as an exclusively male "pastime." But in the decades since, women have just about closed the gender gap while at the same time experiencing the same and other dire health consequences as have men. According to the most recently available statistics from 2002, 25.2 percent of men and 20 percent of women were smokers. Every year, smoking kills more than 276,000 men and 142,000 women through smoking-related diseases, including lung and other cancers, heart disease, stroke, and chronic lung diseases such as emphysema.
According to the U.S. Surgeon General's report "Women and Smoking" released in 2001, the U.S. is in the midst of a "full-blown epidemic" of smoking-related disease in women today. Smoking has long been the leading cause of preventable death and disease among women. And, according to recent surveys, many women do not realize that lung cancer, once rare among women, surpassed breast cancer in 1986 as the leading cause of female cancer death in the U.S.
In fact, according to the U.S. Surgeon General's report "The Health Consequences of Smoking," released in 2004, it has been proven that smoking (or living with a person who smokes) can cause disease in nearly every organ of the body, in men as well as women. The list of diseases caused by smoking has been expanded to include abdominal aortic aneurysm, acute myeloid leukemia, cataract, cervical cancer, kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer, pneumonia, periodontitis and stomach cancer. These are in addition to diseases previously known to be caused by smoking, including bladder, colorectal, liver, esophageal, laryngeal, lung, oral and throat cancers, chronic lung diseases, coronary heart and cardiovascular diseases as well as reproductive effects and sudden infant death syndrome.
Smoking also harms many aspects and every phase of reproduction: menstrual function, oral contraceptive use, fertility, problems in pregnancy and giving birth to low-weight babies, among other conditions (read more detail in "The Effects of Smoking on Reproductive Health and Pregnancy" section).
In addition to causing lung and other cancers, lung disease, coronary heart disease and stroke smoking also increases your risk by 13 times of developing osteoporosis. Smoking is causally related to an increased risk for hip fracture as well, especially among postmenopausal women (studies have shown that bone mineral density and body mass are lower in smokers). Smoking also affects your appearance. Long-term smoking will cause your skin to wrinkle prematurely and lose its elasticity, your nails and teeth to turn yellow and your breath to smell foul.
While smoking rates have fallen among women since 1965--33.9 percent of women were smokers in 1965, as compared with 20 percent in 2004--teenage girls and young women have been lighting up at an alarming rate since the 1970s. The prevalence of smoking among teenagers is measured differently than among adults. They are asked whether they have smoked in the last 30 days. A "yes" answer places them in the smoker category. In 2001, 29.2 percent of high school senior boys and 27.7 percent of high school senior girls were considered smokers in the survey.
Adolescents who smoke are generally less physically fit and have more respiratory illnesses than their nonsmoking peers. In addition, smoking by adolescents hastens the onset of lung function decline during late adolescence and early adulthood. Smoking by adolescents is also related to impaired lung growth, chronic coughing and wheezing.
Marketing Tobacco: Why Teenage Girls Are Targeted
With all of the negative publicity about smoking, why do so many women and teenage girls continue to smoke? Teenagers vastly underestimate the addiction potential of nicotine. A woman who begins smoking when she is very young will have a very difficult time quitting as she ages and becomes more concerned with the health consequences. Studies show that most teenage girls who smoke want to quit, and 77 percent of them have tried.
It is well documented that there are social, political and economic forces that influence tobacco use, particularly among youth. A major factor influencing susceptibility to and initiation of smoking among girls, in the U.S. and overseas, is the tobacco industry's long-standing (75 years or more) targeted marketing to women and girls. Tobacco marketers know that if they can hook children as users, these children are more likely to become lifelong customers.
The tobacco industry spends more than $11 billion dollars annually in the U.S. to advertise and promote its products, including print media advertising (cigarette ads are banned from television and radio); distribution of free samples, cents-off coupons, T-shirts and other giveaways; movie product placements; cultural programs; donations to a wide range of national and local organizations; and political contributions to elected officials. Also, a study in late 2001 found that the more teenagers see actors smoking in films, the more likely they are to try cigarettes. This targeted marketing to teenage girls and women is dominated by themes portraying the desirability and independence of women who smoke. These themes are conveyed through ads featuring thin, attractive, athletic models, images very much at variance with the serious health consequences experienced by so many women who smoke.
Women's Greater Vulnerability to Tobacco
Some research has revealed that women might be more susceptible to the addictive properties of nicotine and have a slower metabolic clearance of nicotine from their bodies than men. Also, women seem to be more susceptible to the effects of tobacco carcinogens than men.
A recent survey of both men and women showed that women cite more emotional causes such as relief of stress, anxiety, anger or depression when asked the reasons why they smoke. One-third of both men and women in the survey also said that the longest they have been able to stop was for one week or less. Only one-fifth of both genders were successful for a year or more.
Smoking and Addiction
Nicotine is what keeps smokers addicted to tobacco, and it doesn't take long to get hooked. Nicotine is one of the most powerful addictive drugs, yet it is also easily available and more socially accepted than other highly addictive substances. On a milligram by milligram comparison, nicotine is 10 times more addictive than heroin.
Nicotine is the addictive chemical in tobacco, however most of the negative health consequences of smoking are caused by the other 4,000 chemicals inhaled when tobacco products are burned. Carbon monoxide is also produced. It becomes attached to the red blood cells and decreases the oxygen available to the body tissues.
Nicotine's effect on the central nervous system is what makes smoking pleasurable. Nicotine has a calming effect, and can relieve anxiety, boredom and irritability. Nicotine also has a stimulant effect, increasing alertness, improving concentration.
Within seven to 10 seconds of inhaling, your brain feels the effect of nicotine. Repeated inhalations maintain a steady blood level of nicotine. When you stop puffing the blood level goes down. You light up again to deliver more nicotine to the brain. Pretty soon your brain and body consider it normal for you to have a certain blood level of nicotine. When that level goes down you feel uncomfortable, irritable, unfocused. That's withdrawal. Now you are addicted. You smoke to keep from going into withdrawal, and you may find yourself smoking more and more.
The Combined Effects of Smoking and Oral Contraceptives
Smoking cigarettes while taking birth control pills dramatically increases risks of heart attack for women over 35. Smoking is far more dangerous to a woman's health than taking birth control pills, but the combination of oral contraceptive pill use and smoking has a greater effect on heart attack risk than the simple addition of the two factors.
Smoking cigarettes while taking birth control pills increases a woman's risk of having an ischemic stroke (three times more likely in pill users than in nonusers) or a hemorrhagic stroke (three to four times that of nonusers), according to a large World Health Organization (WHO) study.
The Effects of Smoking on Reproductive Health and Pregnancy
Smoking affects ovarian function and decreases the female hormone estrogen. If you are planning to become pregnant, cigarette smoking can impair your fertility by adversely affecting ovulatory and tubal function, egg production and implantation. Smoking may cause you to have irregular menstrual cycles. Women who smoke also have an earlier menopause, which may increase their risk of osteoporosis, heart disease and other conditions for which estrogen provides a protective effect.
Between 12 and 22 percent of pregnant women continue to smoke throughout their pregnancies. Despite having increased knowledge of the adverse effects of smoking during pregnancy, it is estimated that only 18 to 25 percent quit smoking once they become pregnant. If you smoke while you are pregnant, you are putting yourself and your unborn child at increased risk for complications. Well-known risks of smoking during pregnancy are complications from bleeding and low-birth weight babies. Many studies document that smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The 2004 Surgeon General's Report, "The Health Consequences of Smoking" refers to additional complications including premature birth, stillbirth, placenta previa (the placenta grows too close to the opening of the uterus, a condition that often leads to Caesarean delivery), placental abruption (the placenta prematurely separates from the uterus wall), premature rupture of uterine membranes and preeclampsia (a condition that results in high blood pressure and excess protein in the urine). Smoking during pregnancy also reduces the newborn's lung function. If you are a smoker and a nursing mother, it is important to know that nicotine is found in breast milk, and therefore enters your baby's system.
If you have children, your smoke puts them at risk, too. Secondhand smoke has been shown to make children more susceptible to infections, including colds and flu, ear infections, and lower respiratory infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia. It also causes new cases of asthma, as well as making existing cases of asthma worse.
To learn more about second-hand smoke, visit the government-funded environmental health campaign, the Smoke-Free Home Pledge Initiative, designed to protect millions of America's children from the risks of secondhand smoke in their own homes. For more on this initiative, go to www.epa.gov.
According to the U.S. Surgeon General's report "Women and Smoking" released in 2001, the U.S. is in the midst of a "full-blown epidemic" of smoking-related disease in women today. Smoking has long been the leading cause of preventable death and disease among women. And, according to recent surveys, many women do not realize that lung cancer, once rare among women, surpassed breast cancer in 1986 as the leading cause of female cancer death in the U.S.
In fact, according to the U.S. Surgeon General's report "The Health Consequences of Smoking," released in 2004, it has been proven that smoking (or living with a person who smokes) can cause disease in nearly every organ of the body, in men as well as women. The list of diseases caused by smoking has been expanded to include abdominal aortic aneurysm, acute myeloid leukemia, cataract, cervical cancer, kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer, pneumonia, periodontitis and stomach cancer. These are in addition to diseases previously known to be caused by smoking, including bladder, colorectal, liver, esophageal, laryngeal, lung, oral and throat cancers, chronic lung diseases, coronary heart and cardiovascular diseases as well as reproductive effects and sudden infant death syndrome.
Smoking also harms many aspects and every phase of reproduction: menstrual function, oral contraceptive use, fertility, problems in pregnancy and giving birth to low-weight babies, among other conditions (read more detail in "The Effects of Smoking on Reproductive Health and Pregnancy" section).
In addition to causing lung and other cancers, lung disease, coronary heart disease and stroke smoking also increases your risk by 13 times of developing osteoporosis. Smoking is causally related to an increased risk for hip fracture as well, especially among postmenopausal women (studies have shown that bone mineral density and body mass are lower in smokers). Smoking also affects your appearance. Long-term smoking will cause your skin to wrinkle prematurely and lose its elasticity, your nails and teeth to turn yellow and your breath to smell foul.
While smoking rates have fallen among women since 1965--33.9 percent of women were smokers in 1965, as compared with 20 percent in 2004--teenage girls and young women have been lighting up at an alarming rate since the 1970s. The prevalence of smoking among teenagers is measured differently than among adults. They are asked whether they have smoked in the last 30 days. A "yes" answer places them in the smoker category. In 2001, 29.2 percent of high school senior boys and 27.7 percent of high school senior girls were considered smokers in the survey.
Adolescents who smoke are generally less physically fit and have more respiratory illnesses than their nonsmoking peers. In addition, smoking by adolescents hastens the onset of lung function decline during late adolescence and early adulthood. Smoking by adolescents is also related to impaired lung growth, chronic coughing and wheezing.
Marketing Tobacco: Why Teenage Girls Are Targeted
With all of the negative publicity about smoking, why do so many women and teenage girls continue to smoke? Teenagers vastly underestimate the addiction potential of nicotine. A woman who begins smoking when she is very young will have a very difficult time quitting as she ages and becomes more concerned with the health consequences. Studies show that most teenage girls who smoke want to quit, and 77 percent of them have tried.
It is well documented that there are social, political and economic forces that influence tobacco use, particularly among youth. A major factor influencing susceptibility to and initiation of smoking among girls, in the U.S. and overseas, is the tobacco industry's long-standing (75 years or more) targeted marketing to women and girls. Tobacco marketers know that if they can hook children as users, these children are more likely to become lifelong customers.
The tobacco industry spends more than $11 billion dollars annually in the U.S. to advertise and promote its products, including print media advertising (cigarette ads are banned from television and radio); distribution of free samples, cents-off coupons, T-shirts and other giveaways; movie product placements; cultural programs; donations to a wide range of national and local organizations; and political contributions to elected officials. Also, a study in late 2001 found that the more teenagers see actors smoking in films, the more likely they are to try cigarettes. This targeted marketing to teenage girls and women is dominated by themes portraying the desirability and independence of women who smoke. These themes are conveyed through ads featuring thin, attractive, athletic models, images very much at variance with the serious health consequences experienced by so many women who smoke.
Women's Greater Vulnerability to Tobacco
Some research has revealed that women might be more susceptible to the addictive properties of nicotine and have a slower metabolic clearance of nicotine from their bodies than men. Also, women seem to be more susceptible to the effects of tobacco carcinogens than men.
A recent survey of both men and women showed that women cite more emotional causes such as relief of stress, anxiety, anger or depression when asked the reasons why they smoke. One-third of both men and women in the survey also said that the longest they have been able to stop was for one week or less. Only one-fifth of both genders were successful for a year or more.
Smoking and Addiction
Nicotine is what keeps smokers addicted to tobacco, and it doesn't take long to get hooked. Nicotine is one of the most powerful addictive drugs, yet it is also easily available and more socially accepted than other highly addictive substances. On a milligram by milligram comparison, nicotine is 10 times more addictive than heroin.
Nicotine is the addictive chemical in tobacco, however most of the negative health consequences of smoking are caused by the other 4,000 chemicals inhaled when tobacco products are burned. Carbon monoxide is also produced. It becomes attached to the red blood cells and decreases the oxygen available to the body tissues.
Nicotine's effect on the central nervous system is what makes smoking pleasurable. Nicotine has a calming effect, and can relieve anxiety, boredom and irritability. Nicotine also has a stimulant effect, increasing alertness, improving concentration.
Within seven to 10 seconds of inhaling, your brain feels the effect of nicotine. Repeated inhalations maintain a steady blood level of nicotine. When you stop puffing the blood level goes down. You light up again to deliver more nicotine to the brain. Pretty soon your brain and body consider it normal for you to have a certain blood level of nicotine. When that level goes down you feel uncomfortable, irritable, unfocused. That's withdrawal. Now you are addicted. You smoke to keep from going into withdrawal, and you may find yourself smoking more and more.
The Combined Effects of Smoking and Oral Contraceptives
Smoking cigarettes while taking birth control pills dramatically increases risks of heart attack for women over 35. Smoking is far more dangerous to a woman's health than taking birth control pills, but the combination of oral contraceptive pill use and smoking has a greater effect on heart attack risk than the simple addition of the two factors.
Smoking cigarettes while taking birth control pills increases a woman's risk of having an ischemic stroke (three times more likely in pill users than in nonusers) or a hemorrhagic stroke (three to four times that of nonusers), according to a large World Health Organization (WHO) study.
The Effects of Smoking on Reproductive Health and Pregnancy
Smoking affects ovarian function and decreases the female hormone estrogen. If you are planning to become pregnant, cigarette smoking can impair your fertility by adversely affecting ovulatory and tubal function, egg production and implantation. Smoking may cause you to have irregular menstrual cycles. Women who smoke also have an earlier menopause, which may increase their risk of osteoporosis, heart disease and other conditions for which estrogen provides a protective effect.
Between 12 and 22 percent of pregnant women continue to smoke throughout their pregnancies. Despite having increased knowledge of the adverse effects of smoking during pregnancy, it is estimated that only 18 to 25 percent quit smoking once they become pregnant. If you smoke while you are pregnant, you are putting yourself and your unborn child at increased risk for complications. Well-known risks of smoking during pregnancy are complications from bleeding and low-birth weight babies. Many studies document that smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The 2004 Surgeon General's Report, "The Health Consequences of Smoking" refers to additional complications including premature birth, stillbirth, placenta previa (the placenta grows too close to the opening of the uterus, a condition that often leads to Caesarean delivery), placental abruption (the placenta prematurely separates from the uterus wall), premature rupture of uterine membranes and preeclampsia (a condition that results in high blood pressure and excess protein in the urine). Smoking during pregnancy also reduces the newborn's lung function. If you are a smoker and a nursing mother, it is important to know that nicotine is found in breast milk, and therefore enters your baby's system.
If you have children, your smoke puts them at risk, too. Secondhand smoke has been shown to make children more susceptible to infections, including colds and flu, ear infections, and lower respiratory infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia. It also causes new cases of asthma, as well as making existing cases of asthma worse.
To learn more about second-hand smoke, visit the government-funded environmental health campaign, the Smoke-Free Home Pledge Initiative, designed to protect millions of America's children from the risks of secondhand smoke in their own homes. For more on this initiative, go to www.epa.gov.
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