Cancers, Cardiovascular Diseases and pulmonary
pathologies are at the center of which tobacco is directly involved.
Non-Communicable Diseases
(NCD’s), also called chronic diseases, are not transferred from one person to
another. They are of long duration and evolve generally slowly. The four
principal types of non-communicable diseases are cardiovascular diseases (Cardiovascular
or cerebral accidents), cancers, chronic respiratory diseases (chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma) and diabetes.
Tobacco use, the first preventable risk factor
for NCD
According to the World Health
Organization (WHO), the principal risk factors for NCD include tobacco use,
poor eating habits, physical inactivity and the harmful use of alcohol. Among
the causes of death, tobacco use is one that can be better prevented. WHO
reports about it, that smoking is a risk factor common to the four main non-communicable
diseases groups (Cancer, Cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory
diseases, and diabetes), and kills more than 6 million people each year. We
estimate that tobacco use is at the origin of close to 71% of deaths related to
cancer of the lungs, 42% of chronic respiratory diseases and close to 10% of
cardiovascular diseases respectively.
