Reuters AlertNet Full site
Homepage | Newsdesk | NGO Latest | Crisis briefings | Country profiles | MediaWatch | Jobs | Alerting | Login

NEWSDESK

Smokeless tobacco ups oral cancer risk 80 pct-WHO
01 Jul 2008 22:30:01 GMT
 Source: Reuters
LONDON, July 1 (Reuters) - Chewing tobacco and snuff are less dangerous than cigarettes but the smokeless products still raise the risk of oral cancer by 80 percent, the World Health Organisation's cancer agency said on Tuesday.

The review of 11 studies worldwide showed people who chewed tobacco and used snuff also had a 60 percent higher risk of oesophagus and pancreatic cancer.

The researchers sought to quantify the risk of smokeless tobacco after a number of studies differed on just how dangerous the products were, said Paolo Boffetta, an epidemiologist at the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer.

"What we did was try to quantify the burden of smokeless cancer," he said in a telephone interview. "This has never been attempted in such a systematic way before."

The researchers, who published their findings in Lancet Oncology, did this by looking at population-wide studies and trials of both humans and animals.

They found frequency of use varies greatly both across and within countries, depending on sex, age, ethnic origin and economic background, and were highest in the United States, Sweden and India.

They also found that while snuff and chew were less dangerous than smoking because they were not linked to lung cancer, getting cigarette users to switch was not good public policy.

"If all smokers did this there would be a net benefit," Boffetta said. "The point is we don't know whether this would happen and there is no data to suggest these smokers would stop or switch." (Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by Maggie Fox)


AlertNet news is provided by
Email this article       Send comments

Topics

•  Technology

MORE >>

NGO latest

•  UMCOR Hotline for July 1, 2008
UMCOR - USA

•  ACT Rapid Response Payment for Floods in Assam, Orissa and West Bengal, India
ACT - Switzerland

•  ACT Alert: Floods in Assam, Orissa and West Bengal, India
ACT - Switzerland

•  CHRISTIAN AID WELCOMES GREEN POWER REVOLUTION
Christian Aid - UK

•  UMCOR Hotline for June 24, 2008
UMCOR - USA

MORE >>

Latest news

•  Smokeless tobacco ups oral cancer risk 80 pct-WHO

•  Soaring prices push economies to tipping point-IMF

•  G8 alone can't set world climate goal -White House

•  Evacuation as Chile's Llaima volcano spews lava

•  Tougher U.S. rules for diabetes drugs debated

MORE >>

AlertNet news is provided by

Related articles

Breaking stories
 Smokeless tobacco ups oral cancer risk 80 pct-WHO (1 minute ago)

Soaring prices push economies to tipping point-IMF (1 minute ago)

AlertNet insight
 MEDIAWATCH: Food summit thwarts hope (1 minute ago)

Aid agency news feed
 UMCOR Hotline for July 1, 2008 (1 minute ago)

Blogs
 You can't avoid politics if you really want to fight AIDS (1 minute ago)

Maps
 MAP: India floods (as of June 16) (1 minute ago)


Country information

Topics
Technology
Facts & figures
India Sweden United States of America United Kingdom

Del.icio.us Del.icio.us  |   Digg Digg  |   NewsVine NewsVine  |   Reddit Reddit   
Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2008-07-01T160621Z_01_SRI17_RTRIDSP_2_KASHMIR-LAND-ARRESTS_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/SRI17.htm
Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2008-07-01T160458Z_01_SRI19_RTRIDSP_2_KASHMIR-LAND-ARRESTS_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/SRI19.htm
Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2008-07-01T160354Z_01_SRI16_RTRIDSP_2_KASHMIR-LAND-ARRESTS_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/SRI16.htm
Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2008-07-01T145830Z_01_SRI15_RTRIDSP_2_KASHMIR-LAND-ARREST_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/SRI15.htm
Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2008-07-01T145648Z_01_SRI14_RTRIDSP_2_KASHMIR-LAND-ARREST_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/SRI14.htm

Kashmiri people hold torches to celebrate the revocation of a government order to transfer land to a Hindu shrine trust in Srinagar July 1, 2008. India placed several top Kashmiri separatist ...


More pictures | Galleries
Disclaimers |  Copyright |  Privacy |  Contact Us |  Feedback |  About Us |  RSS XML

Last updated:Tue Jul 1 22:32:22 2008