Smoking and mortalities from cancer, coronary heart disease and stroke in male Japanese physicians

Abstract

A cohort of 5,477 male Japanese physicians was studied to examine the relationship between smoking habits and mortalities from cancer, coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke over 12.7 years. The logistic regression analysis based on proportional hazard models was used for statistical assessment. The risks of both lung cancer and CHD were strongly associated with smoking habits in terms of the number of cigarettes smoked per day, inhalation level and age at starting to smoke. These associations were not influenced by the effect of drinking habits. However, the risk increment of lung cancer due to cigarette smoking was fairly small as compared with the data from other studies of male Caucasians. A statistically significant association was observed between upper aerodigestive cancer and cigarette smoking. But this relationship became insignificant after adjustment for drinking habits, and the risk of heavy smokers was drastically reduced. No clear association was noted between smoking and mortalities from gastric cancer and stroke.

Morbidity and mortality in relation to smoking among women and men of Chinese ethnicity: The Singapore Chinese Health Study

“…Prevalence of smoking was historically extremely low among Asian women (41)(42)(43), and most previous Asian studies examining smoking included only men (27,(30)(31)(32)37). The well documented increase in prevalence of cigarette smoking in women in the newly industrialised Asian countries (44), including Singapore, is postulated to be related, at least in part, to the westernisation (45,46) in lifestyles of those Asian populations.…”

“…In contrast, relatively few prospective studies from Asia, including studies from China (27,28) and East Asian and other countries (29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37) have examined morbidity and mortality in relation to smoking. Most of these reports exclusively studied men (27,(30)(31)(32)37); among the few studies that included women (28,29,(33)(34)(35)(36), only two included women of Chinese ethnicity (28,36).…”

“…Most of these reports exclusively studied men (27,(30)(31)(32)37); among the few studies that included women (28,29,(33)(34)(35)(36), only two included women of Chinese ethnicity (28,36). While previous Asian studies examined smoking in relation to coronary heart disease (CHD) (29)(30)(31), stroke incidence (29,31,33,35) and cause-specific mortality (27,28,30,32,36), only two prospective studies examined cancer incidence (27,34). Studies in Western populations have examined the effect of smoking cessation on morbidity and mortality (10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)26); in contrast, only one prospective Asian study examined the relationship between smoking cessation and cardiovascular mortality (33), but not other mortality causes or cancer incidence.…”

Changes in Coronary Heart Disease Risk Among Japanese

“…13,[17][18][19][20][21] The multivariable hazard ratio of CHD incidence or mortality for current smoking compared with never or previous smoking was Ϸ2 to 3 for either sex, with a dose-response relationship between the number of cigarettes smoked and the risk of CHD.…”

Assessment of Smoking Status among Workers Using an Improved Colorimetric Method

“…Smoking is one of the major risk factors for all causes of death, as well as cancer and cardiovascular diseases 1,2) . Although continuous declining trends have been observed among Japanese men, the prevalence of smoking is still higher than in Western countries 3) .…”