Lung cancer growing threat to women
When women hear the tag “Big C,” they generally think of breast cancer. But according to researchers, lung cancer is likely to be the biggest cancer killer of women in the next few decades, particularly in those countries where female smoking is on the rise. The reality is lung cancer has already surpassed breast cancer in mortality, with nearly 70,000 deaths each year. And this “advance” began in 1987, according to the U.S. Surgeon General.
Perhaps even more startling is the fact that women smokers are up to 70 times more likely to develop lung cancer than male smokers. We may have come a long way, baby, but our cigarettes are killing us.
We’ve already heard about the dangers of coronary heart disease and stroke, but what else can we credit to cigarette smoking?
An overwhelming factor to the overall reproductive health of women stems from the fact that smoking decreases the level of the hormone estrogen. This has been attributed to increasing the likelihood of osteoporosis, ectopic pregnancy (gestation elsewhere than the uterus, such as in a fallopian tube or the peritoneal cavity), miscarriage, stillbirth, cervical cancer, infertility and/or delayed conception and early menopause.
One team at Harvard Medical School reports infertility and early menopause are the result of toxic chemicals in cigarettes that literally trigger the death of a woman’s eggs.
Even when smokers are able to conceive, smoking during pregnancy may be linked to lower infant birth weights, according to the Department of Pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine. Lower birth weights are often associated with infant mortality and a greater risk for developing heart disease or diabetes later in life. Smoking during pregnancy has also been linked to the risk of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).
For what it’s worth, in one study conducted at St. Louis University, researchers report that women who continued to smoke while pregnant were five times more likely to have a current psychiatric disorder, with depression and post-traumatic stress being most prevalent. This should be a red flag for physicians who are unable to convince pregnant mothers to stop smoking – an underlying psychiatric disorder may by at work.
We’ve already mentioned the increased risk of osteoporosis. Smoking can compromise the entire skeletal system, says the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. Research has proven smokers have faster bone loss, weaker spinal ligaments, tend toward more severe vertebral disc degeneration, have an increased risk for hip fractures and require a longer time to heal after fractures.
Smokers also require more time to heal after surgical incisions, and generally see more post-surgical complications. Plastic surgeons routinely encourage their patients to stop smoking for at least four weeks before and four weeks after their surgeries, if unable to completely kick the habit. For major procedures, such as facelifts or breast reconstructions, tissue death at the site of surgery is a real possibility for smokers.
And if a facelift is something that would lift your spirits, consider what smoking does to create those wrinkles in the first place. A 1996 University of Utah dermatology study established that smokers’ faces show substantially more wrinkling than do non-smokers’ faces, and at an earlier age.
Japanese researchers have since shown that the excessive, premature wrinkling occurs at the molecular level – it would appear smokers’ skin cells are unable to produce new collagen to replace that which is being rapidly destroyed by smoking. Exotic face creams are of little value against the ravages of cigarettes.
If that’s not enough, women smokers may be at a higher risk for rheumatoid arthritis and cataracts. Smoking is a major cause of bladder cancer among women, and possibly cancer of the pancreas and kidney. Women who smoke are at a higher risk for developing liver and colorectal cancer, and the more obvious, oral and mouth cancer.
Women who smoke are even at a higher risk for contracting the flu – by about 20 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health. Women smokers will have nearly three times more bronchitis, 75 percent more chronic sinusitis, and 50 percent more peptic ulcers than women who don’t smoke.
Approximately three million women in the United States have died prematurely since 1980 due to smoking-related illnesses. Let’s quit being statistics.