Tencent Medical Code Small Class:
1. Why do some people smoke and live to be 90 years old? Some people never smoke but get lung cancer?
This is a matter of probability. There is a survivor bias in everything, and what you see is just an isolated case, but it doesn't mean that big data is the same.
Known:
In China, 150 out of every 100,000 smokers die from lung cancer.
Only 50 out of every 100,000 people who don't smoke die of lung cancer [1].
You only see that the remaining 90,000 or so smokers have not died of lung cancer, but you ignore a more obvious law -
Smokers are 3 times more likely to die of lung cancer than non-smokers.
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Think that this number is not big enough? And that's just the mortality rate. If you count the prevalence, it is 13 to 23 times.
Of the people who died of lung cancer, 8 out of 10 men smoked and 4 out of 10 women smoked.
This proportion is much higher than the 52.1% smoking rate of Chinese men and the 2.7% smoking rate of Chinese women [2].
Other tobacco-related diseases are analogous.
2. Is smoking really "contributing to the country"?
Taking 2014 as an example, the profits and taxes of mainland tobacco reached 1,051.76 billion yuan.
But according to the World Health Organization, the total economic loss caused by tobacco use in China in 2014 was about 350 billion yuan.
Among them, the direct loss of treating tobacco-related diseases was 53 billion yuan, while the indirect loss (including the loss of productivity caused by smoking-related diseases) was about 297 billion yuan, which was more than five times the direct loss and accounted for 0.55% of GDP in that year[3].
In addition, the report predicts that if smoking rates remain high in China, the number of people dying from tobacco will increase to 2 million in 2030, 3 million in 2050, and 200 million Chinese will die from tobacco-related diseases within this century!
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Have you figured out this long-term account?
3. The process of quitting smoking feels very difficult, what to do?
When you quit smoking for 2 weeks, you will have symptoms of withdrawal such as dizziness, headache, anxiety, hunger and thirst, and malaise, and it is also the most dangerous period for relapse.
At this time, be sure to settle down, try to go to movie theaters, shopping malls and other non-smoking places, and seek support from friends and family [5].
4. Excerpt the real feelings of a netizen after quitting smoking:
I feel like quitting smoking has only brought me one thing: freedom! Twenty years without experiencing freedom!
I'm not anxious about how many cigarettes I still have in the box! I'm no longer anxious about how long the plane will land! I'm no longer anxious about why the movie isn't over yet! I no longer wonder why the night is so long! I'm no longer anxious that the convenience store downstairs is closed!
And how did I quit smoking? It was because one day I suddenly understood that I was not only addicted to smoking, but I had given the key to my cage to tobacco! (via Lao Qiang)
I hope you can regain that freedom.
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bibliography
[1] Liu BQ, Peto R, Chen ZM, Boreham J, Wu YP, Li JY, et al. Emerging tobacco hazards in China: 1. Retrospective proportional mortality study of one million deaths. BMJ. 1998; 317: 1411-1422.
Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. 2015 China Adult Tobacco Survey Report[M]. Beijing: People's Medical Publishing House, 2016
Yang Lian, Huang Yunxia, Sun Qun, et al. Calculation of indirect economic burden of diseases attributable to smoking: based on full income method[J]. China Health Economy, 2015, 34(12).
[4] World Health Organization: The unbearable cost to China – the health, economic and social losses caused to China by the tobacco epidemic
http://www.wpro.who.int/china/publications/2017_china_tobacco_control_report_ch_web_final.pdf?ua=1
[5] WebMD: What happens to the body after quitting smoking?
https://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/what-happens-body-quit-smoking#3
*The content of this article is a popularization of health knowledge and cannot be used as a specific diagnosis and treatment recommendation, nor is it a substitute for face-to-face consultation by a practicing physician, for reference only.
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