Act Now or Risk Being a Nation of Smokers

Without government initiatives to curb tobacco use, Indonesia’s legion of smokers could double from 74 million last year to 140 million by 2020, new research by the University of Indonesia estimates.

While 27 percent of the adult male population in Indonesia were smokers in 1995, the figure jumped to 67 percent in 2011, data compiled from the National Socio-Economic Survey, the Basic Health Care Survey and the Global Adult Tobacco Survey indicate.
From 1995 to 2011, the number of female smokers rose to 4.5 percent from 1.7 percent.
The university’s Demography Institute attributed the rapidly swelling ranks of smokers to increased spending power among the country’s growing middle class, which made cigarettes more affordable.
The researchers noted that cigarette producers are still not required to place graphic warnings on their cigarette packs, as required in many countries.

What Other Adverse Effects Does Tobacco Have on Health?

Cigarette smoking accounts for about one-third of all cancers, including 90 percent of lung cancer cases. Smokeless tobacco (such as chewing tobacco and snuff) also increases the risk of cancer, especially oral cancers. In addition to cancer, smoking causes lung diseases such as chronic bronchitis and emphysema, and increases the risk of heart disease, including stroke, heart attack, vascular disease, and aneurysm. Smoking has also been linked to leukemia, cataracts, an On average, adults who smoke die 14 years earlier than nonsmokers.

Although nicotine is addictive and can be toxic if ingested in high doses, it does not cause cancer—other chemicals are responsible for most of the severe health consequences of tobacco use. Tobacco smoke is a complex mixture of chemicals such as carbon monoxide, tar, formaldehyde, cyanide,

Researchers have found a new technique that blocks an inflammatory protein

Researchers have found a new technique that blocks an inflammatory protein and reverses lung damage from tobacco smoke in a mouse study. The findings could lead to novel treatments for patients with COPD and smoking related lung diseases.

Granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) is released from the effect of tobacco smoke and leads to lung inflammation, destroying the lung tissue and resulting in emphysema. Blocking GM-CSF reduced the inflammation and lung damage from tobacco smoke, reversing the harmful effect of tobacco smoke in mice given a GM-CSF blocking agent.

Ross Vlahos, Ph.D., a senior research fellow with the lung disease research group at the University of Melbourne says, "Cigarette smoke-exposed mice that were treated with an anti-GM-CSF had significantly less lung inflammation in comparison to untreated mice. This indicates that GM-CSF is a key mediator in smoke-induced lung inflammation and its neutralization may have therapeutic implications in diseases such as COPD."

The researchers exposed mice to tobacco smoke - half were given the GM-CSF blocking agent and the other half were used as controls. After subjecting the mice to tobacco smoke that was equivalent to nine cigarettes daily for four days, researchers killed the mice then examined their lung tissue, finding that the GM-CSF blocking agent "strongly reduced the number of potentially harmful white blood cells that infiltrate the lung after smoke exposure, as well as inhibiting the pro-inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor (TNF)" that could lead to lung cancer.

Quitting smoking is still the best way to prevent and reverse lung damage from tobacco smoke warns Dr. Vlahos. "Our treatment deals with cigarette smoke-induced lung inflammation involved in COPD, not cancer and other smoking-related ailments. Quitting remains the best and only cure for smoking-related lung disease." The findings that damage from tobacco smoke was reversed in mice by blocking GM-CSF could also have clinical applications for other inflammatory related disease.