Today World Tobacco Day has been celebrated and we want to contribute our grain of sand. Just a year ago we already told you that many children are exposed to tobacco smoke in their homes, but in addition to that earlier this year we have known that this exposure that children receive is a predisposing factor to suffer asthma when their mother smokes while being pregnant.
Tobacco is one of the leading causes of death in the world, its consumption causes more than five million deaths a year, six hundred fifty thousand in the European Union and fifty thousand in Spain. Of those killed in Spain, 3,000 are passive smokers and 20,000 are due to lung cancer. According to data from the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology (SEOM), lung cancer will be the second in incidence for 2015 with 28,206 new cases.
Although there is widespread awareness about the harmful effects of tobacco on health, In our country, lung cancer has an incidence of 23,211 cases per year, being one of the three most common types of cancer. From the data provided by the last European Health Survey in Spain in 2009, it emerged that more than one million young people between 16 and 24 years old (26%) and more than 2 million between 26 and 35 years (32.8%) smoke daily.
And according to experts, one in three teenage tobacco users will develop a clinically relevant dependence until the age of 35, which means increasing the risk of developing diseases related to tobacco use in adulthood.
The Government Delegation for the National Drug Plan gives us that the average age of onset of tobacco use is the earliest of all drugs (13.3 years). The average age of onset in daily consumption occurs one year later (14.3 years).
According to Oncobarometer data, cancer prevention recommendations contribute significantly to increasing the perception of risk factors.
That is why the Spanish Association Against Cancer (aecc) wants to remember the need to unlink the youngest of the tobacco culture and insist on the importance of educating them in healthy lifestyle habits.
Studies carried out by this entity show that it is necessary to promote greater knowledge about the impact of different risk factors on the development of cancer, to better prevent this disease. Disseminating information on cancer risk factors is a task of great importance to promote and improve healthy habits in society as a whole.
And finally I leave this announcement of the Campaign promoted by the AECC “break with tobacco” in which several famous representatives of various sectors (sports, music, etc.) are separated from tobacco with phrases like 'that your kisses know to kisses, not an ashtray ',' what you have to smoke is the dance floor, not you '.
