Smoking will kill one in three young men in China unless rates of tobacco use drop dramatically, according to a new study in the medical journal The Lancet.
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The researchers came to these conclusions by conducting two nationally representative studies-the first in the 90s, the second 15 years later-that tracked the health outcomes of smoking among a total of 730,000 men and women.
And if uptake continues at its current rate, the study estimates deaths in China due to smoking will reach two million a year by 2030.
In China the number of smokers has been on the rise ever since the late 1980s, ever since cigarettes became more available to the public. The paper warns that about half of them would eventually die by tobacco unless they stop smoking.
China consumes more than one-third of the world’s cigarettes and has one-sixth of the global smoking death toll.
The 2010 death toll was made up of a few 840,000 men and 130,000 women in China, which has a population of about 1.4 billion. And the proportion of smokers overall who have chosen to quit rose from 3 percent to 9 percent between 1991 and 2006. Less than 1 percent of death in women born since 1960 can be attributed to smoking. Consequently, female tobacco-related deaths have decreased dramatically.
Conversely, the women of working age in China now smoke much less than the older generation. That said, according to the research, approximately 10 percent of women smoked 80 years ago. Also, many people in China find it hard to kick the habit in a culture where smoking has become so ingrained.
“The key to avoid this huge wave of deaths is cessation, and if you are a young man, don’t start”, said co-author Richard Peto, from the University of Oxford.
“With effective measures to accelerate cessation, the growing epidemic of premature death from tobacco can be halted and then reversed, as in other countries”, said the study led by researchers from Oxford University, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
Income from tobacco sales and taxes are major sources of government revenue in China.
A survey from the World Health Organization in August found that knowledge about the dangers of smoking is improving in China, but still has a long way to go.
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In recent decades there has been a large increase in cigarette smoking by young men, and the research shows the consequences that are now emerging.
