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# Tobacco use and lung cancer deaths
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/tobacco_lung_cancer_deaths_0824120709/
- Published: 2012-08-24T20:09:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T16:09:15.000Z
- Description: A Journal of the National Cancer Institute study estimates US tobacco control averted 795,851 lung cancer deaths from 1975 through 2000, including 70,218 in 2000 alone. That is only 32 percent of what eliminating tobacco use entirely could have prevented over the period.
- Author: Food Consumer
- Tags: Lifestyle, Health News, #vivvo-import

By David Liu, PHD

Friday Aug 24, 2012 ([foodconsumer.org](http://www.foodconsumer.org/)) -- A new study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found the U.S. effort to reduce tobacco use by 2000 had helped prevent nearly 800,000 premature deaths from lung cancer in the country since the mid-1950s. 

The study led by Suresh H. Moolgavkar of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA and colleagues showed that during the period of 1975 through 2000, the anti-tobacco effort had averted 795,851 lung cancer deaths in the U.S. including 552,572 deaths among men and 243,277 among women. The study also showed that in 2000 alone, about 70,218 lung cancer deaths were averted including 44,135 among men and 26,083 among women.

However, these numbers represented only 32 percent of lung cancer deaths that could have been potentially averted during the period of 1975 through 2000, and 38 percent of the lung cancer deaths that could have been averted in 1991 to 2000 and 44 percent of lung cancer deaths that could have prevented in 2000 if the tobacco control had been completely effective in eliminating tobacco use as the Surgeon General recommended in a report titled Smoking and Health issued in 1964.

The researchers concluded "Our results reflect the cumulative impact of changes in smoking behavior since the 1950s. Despite a large impact of changing smoking behaviors on lung cancer deaths, lung cancer remains a major public health problem. Continued efforts at tobacco control are critical to further reduce the burden of this disease."

Tobacco use causes more than lung cancer. Tobacco can also increase risk of developing bladder cancer, cancer of the oesophagus, kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer and cervical cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hypertension, infertility, macular degeneration, ulcers and impotence.