Even as a Member of Parliament wonders if tobacco could cause cancer, a new research has established that tobacco chewers are at 30% greater risk of contracting cancer than non-users.
The survey, first large study in the country, analysed around six lakh people, (1 lakh in rural areas) over the age of 35 years to understand how serious the risk was. A survey of 80,000 people who died during 1995-1998 in rural population in Villupuram and urban population in Chennai was done and the probable underlying causes of death were arrived at by verbal autopsy.
Ill Effects
- New cancers occurring every year: 3.2 lakh (2.3 lakh men + 0.9 lakh women)
- Old & new cancers prevalent: 8.8 lakh (5.9 lakh + 2.9 lakh)
80% of lung cancers caused by tobacco smoking -
Cervical cancer is higher in urban and rural tobacco chewers
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Most common cancers in chewers are: mouth, throat and stomach
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Chewers also suffer paralysis, tuberculosis and heart attack
About 35 to 40 per cent of tobacco consumption in India is of the smokeless form, according to V. Gajalakshmi, principal investigator and director of Chennai-based non-governmental organisation Epidemiological Research Centre.
For the study she chose teetotallers given to chewing tobacco. The article, ‘Tobacco Chewing and Adult Mortality in Never Smoking Non Alcohol Drinkers in South India’ , published in the March issue of Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention states that chewers are at 30 per cent higher risk than non-chewers.
“Statistically significant excess risks were found among ever-tobacco chewers for respiratory diseases combined, respiratory tuberculosis, stroke and cancer (all sites combined) compared to never-tobacco chewers,” the article states.
“Among cancers – the most common are mouth, throat and stomach, in both men and women. The new finding is that in women the increased risk of cervical cancer in both urban and rural areas is 100 per cent higher than those who do not chew,” Dr. Gajalakshmi said.
Less educated groups and women living in rural areas are given to tobacco chewing. Asked if poor people chewed tobacco to suppress hunger, she said: “Those working in the fields have made chewing tobacco a culture.”
The research was funded and supported by the UK Medical research Council and Cancer Research UK to the University of Oxford Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit, University of Oxford, Fogarty International Centre, Bethesda.
