Smoking snuffs out 1 in 10
2005-09-16 11:41
Cape Town - Nearly one out of every 10 adults who died in the country during the past year could still have been alive had they not smoked.
Statistics, gathered from death certificates that document the smoking habits of the deceased, show that smoking directly claimed the lives of more than 20 000 South Africans every year. Smoking habits have been listed on death certificates since 1998.
The study conducted by the Medical Research Council (MRC) on the effect of regular tobacco smoking on the national death figures was the first to analyse smoking habit details from death certificates countrywide. The results were published in the latest MRC annual report.
The results are cause for concern: At least 8% of all adult deaths in South Africa is the direct result of tobacco smoking. In 58% of all deaths of lung cancer, 37% of deaths because of chronic bronchitis and 20% of deaths because of heart disease and tuberculosis (TB), smoking was the direct cause of death.
Significant TB statistics
"The figures for TB were particularly significant," said doctor Debbie Bradshaw, one of the MRC researchers. Because so many people countrywide die of tuberculosis, the smoking-related TB deaths were much higher than the others.
It was also the first time that statistics clearly proved the link between smoking and TB, Bradshaw said.
Bradshaw said the actual number of South Africans who died because of smoking might be higher because the sample was not big enough to ensure absolute accuracy. Studies done using another methodology indicated that smoking could have caused even more deaths.
Deaths because of diseases such as cirrhosis of the liver were also not added. Although this disease is sometimes caused by smoking, it is too difficult to distinguish when the illness was caused by smoking or a smoker's heavy drinking.
The figures could also be too conservative because many people claimed on the forms to be non-smokers because they'd quit smoking a year or two before they died. Smoking could still have played a significant role in the deaths of these people.
Decline in the number of smokers
The report said about 52% of South African men and 17% of women smoke. The percentages differ among population groups.
The MRC's cancer epidemiology research group took a sample from death certificates issued over a three-month period in 1998. The department of home affairs made these certificates available to Statistics South Africa.
The report said the link between smoking and TB, as pointed out in the statistics, was particularly relevant to the Coloured population group where the incidence of TB is particularly high. Fifty-eight percent of Coloured men and 59% of Coloured women smoke.
Bradshaw said they hope that the effect of cigarettes will diminish as more people quit the habit because of the strict anti-tobacco legislation. In the past 10 years, the number of South African adult smokers dropped by 25%.