By RICK COUSINS Correspondent
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that just under 17 percent of Americans smoke. That’s way down from the more than 42 percent recorded in 1965. The healthful trend is thanks most likely to new attitudes toward smoking, health and the regulations and laws. Regulations have disfavored smoking since the famous Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop’s report condemning it some 50 years ago.
Koop’s official biography at the National Institutes of Health notes, “The first person C. Everett Koop persuaded to stop smoking was his own father. John Everett Koop smoked three packs of cigarettes a day, developing a chronic cough that alarmed his wife. She shared her concerns with her son during one of his visits home from college. Koop agreed with her, but doubted that his father could muster the determination to quit. Overhearing his son’s remark, John Koop walked quietly to an upstairs bathroom and flushed his cigarettes, never to smoke again.”
But one group seems to have resisted all calls, pleas and arguments for quitting the cigarette habit. The nature of this group may surprise you: It is the survivors of adolescent and young adult cancers who are much more likely to smoke than people who have never had cancer.
This counter intuitive link was uncovered in a recent issue of the medical journal, Cancer, by University of Texas Medical Branch researcher Sapna Kaul, PhD. She is an assistant professor of health economics at the Medical Branch.
“Smoking is the leading cause of cancer, but the study found that cancer survivors were not staunch nonsmokers,” Kaul said in the Medical Branch’s media release. “Smokers may be more likely to develop cancer, and as we found in our analysis, many survivors of adolescent and young adult cancer continue to smoke cigarettes after their diagnosis, which further affects their health and quality of life.”
Why would someone continue to challenge their health after cancer kicked in? Kaul can’t be sure, but it is possible that peer pressure or a desire for a sense of normalcy was the proximate goal of patients who continued to smoked during the generally stressful period of cancer treatment and survivorship.
Kaul’s team studied more than 1,000 survivors aged 15 to 39, as well as a control group of nonsmokers. It’s findings:
“The study found that 33 percent of survivors were current smokers compared with 22 percent of the people without a history of cancer. The current smokers among survivors were significantly more likely to report chronic illness, such as having asthma, heart diseases, lung diseases, diabetes and poorer general health.”
Another unexpected factor was also noted in the study. A lack of insurance was linked with the likelihood of smoking in the patients surveyed. More than 50 percent of survivors who were uninsured were current smokers compared with 22 percent of survivors who had private insurance.
The American Cancer Society asserts that the total economic impact of smoking tops $130 billion annually in the United States. Their figures would indicate that each $7 pack of cigarettes sold cost society almost $35 in lost wages, medical care and ancillary expenses.
“The next step will be to evaluate smoking status specifically among survivors of adolescent and young adult cancer in Texas and implement and examine the effectiveness of smoking-cessation interventions among those who currently smoke,” Kaul said.
Kaul’s research team included S. Phani Veeranki, Ana Rodriguez and Yong-fang Kuo. The study was supported by the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.
Rick Cousins can be reached at rick.cousins@galvnews.com.