Study: Smoking is Even Worse Than You Realize

As difficult as it is to believe, a new study found that smoking is actually worse for you than previously thought.

It's no secret that smoking is bad for you. It's been known to cause 12 types of cancer, along with several other health complications. But things are apparently even worse than previously thought.

According to the New York Times, a new study has indicated that smoking could be responsible for more than 60,000 additional deaths a year and at least five additional diseases.

The new findings are based on health data from nearly a million people who were followed for 10 years. In addition to the well-known hazards of lung cancer, artery disease, heart attacks, chronic lung disease and stroke, the researchers found that smoking was linked to significantly increased risks of infection, kidney disease, intestinal disease caused by inadequate blood flow, and heart and lung ailments not previously attributed to tobacco.

 

That being said, there are some skeptics with regard to this study:

The research was paid for by the American Cancer Society, and Mr. Carter worked with scientists from four universities and the National Cancer Institute.

The study was observational, meaning that it looked at people’s habits, like smoking, and noted statistical correlations between their behavior and their health. Correlation does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship, so this kind of research is not considered as strong as experiments in which participants are assigned at random to treatments or placebos and then compared. But people cannot ethically be instructed to smoke for a study, so a lot of the data on smoking’s effects on people comes from observational studies.

Either way, the mere possibility that smoking is even worse than we previously thought is kind of mind-blowing.