Smoking is not just an addiction, but it has become a part of people and their lifestyle. Where everybody knows that smoking and tobacco chewing leads to cancer, many would not want to change their habits or quit the use of tobacco. Many would not want to be preached, either on quitting or getting rid of smoking. However, there is a lot more to know about cancers which are caused from the consumption of tobacco. Smoking is a hard habit to break because tobacco contains nicotine, which is highly addictive. Like heroin or other addictive drugs, the body and mind quickly become so used to the nicotine in cigarettes that a person needs to have it just to feel normal. Constant smoking and tobacco chewing leads to two very common cancers – lung and oral cancer. According to Dr KC Lakshmaiah, HOD, Medical Oncology, Kidwai Hospital, men have more tendency to get lung cancer due to cigarette and beedi smoking whereas women are more susceptible to oral cancer due to chewing of tobacco. “In Bangalore from the number of cases reported in Kidwai Hospital, lung cancer ranks second among men. While 25 to 30 per cent men suffer from lung cancer only 17.7 per cent women suffer from it. However, oral cancer is the primary cancer most women suffer from.”With more and more cases reported from Bangalore, it is a depressing fact that most of the time early symptoms are misunderstood for pneumonia and tuberculosis. Some of the symptoms include chronic cough, chronic pneumonia (which does not get treated with medicines), drowsiness and weight loss due to loss of appetite. Says Dr KC Lakshmaiah, “Many people are ignorant and feel that they are symptoms for pneumonia or tuberculosis. Cancer can be treated if detected in its primary stages (when it has not spread into the blood stream and other parts of the body). However, in case of a lung cancer, 80 per cent patients can live for only about five years after a successful surgery. Also when cancer is treated in its final stages the least doctors can do is to prolong the victims life for a few months or days and give temporary relief from the pain that the victim goes through due to the treatment.” And it does not end here. If the person smoking is at risk then the people around, have an even higher risk. Passive smoking is more dangerous because it involves those in your surrounding to inhale certain toxic gases which in turn could harm more than “natural smoking”. While the smoker gets the filtered smoke, the people around the smoker get the “sidestream” and “mainstream” smoke. This means that the passive smokers are breathing in what the smoker is exhaling out, and what is burning off the cigarette. “Your children, your friends, family and loved ones are at risk because of a habit you enjoy. Neither is it doing good for you nor is it doing any good for the people around you,” says Dr Lakshmaiah.He further adds that cancer also has many myths associated with it, especially in the rural areas. He says, “Many people have a lot of misunderstanding and follow myths which have no evidence. Most of them are due to false information and wrong thinking of people. It is even more common in rural areas. Cancer is not a communicable disease, it is only due to the lifestyle of people. It is not a punishment for a sin that one has done in the ‘past or current life’. Cancer is not hereditary. It is not necessary that if a mother has suffered from cancer the child will get it. It is independent of all these myths.”
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