Health effects of tobacco

A recent study from the University of Burgundy found that even though women smoke fewer cigarettes than men but they are less likely to quit.

Electronic cigarettes and novel tobacco products have been around for more than a decade as alternatives to cigarette smoking, which kills nearly 700,000 people in the EU every year. However, they remain a controversial issue and the EU is still hesitant about how to treat them legally.

According to ELSTAT, there was a 50+ drop of smokers compared to a decade ago

Around 17 million people among Turkey's population of 83 million still smoke despite years-long efforts to discourage people from smoking, an expert said on National No-Smoking Day on Feb. 9.

But Murat Ağırtaş, the provincial health director of the Central Anatolian province of Kırıkkale, said Turkey dropped in the ranking of a list of heavy-smoker countries.

A study by the National Patients' Organization has found out that 59% of Bulgarians between the age of 19 and 64 are smokers.

Almost all respondents smoke cigarettes and very few use smokeless tobacco or e-cigarettes.

According to the study, 44% of smokers do not intend to change their bad habit, while another 41% plan to reduce smoking.

Tobacco kills more than 8 million people globally every year. More than 7 million of these deaths are from direct tobacco use and around 1.2 million are due to non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.

Ahead of World No Tobacco Day on May 31, health experts have warned that smokers are at a significantly higher risk of complications from the new coronavirus, citing recent studies which point to a 79 percent higher risk of death.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has noted  turn to the fight against smoking - the number of male smokers is decreasing for the first time worldwide and is on the turn, BTA reports.

So far, the WHO has noted a regular increase in male smokers since recording their numbers over the past 20 years.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis hailed the Health Ministry's National Action Plan Against Smoking as a "bold initiative for protecting public health," at its presentation in Athens on Tuesday.

Every year, 4250 new cases of lung cancer are diagnosed in Bulgaria, 3260 of them among men, Prof. Asen Dudov, chairman of the Bulgarian Cancer Society, told BTA. According to him, the reasons for the increase in lung cancer cases are smoking, exposure to asbestos, passive smoking, genetic prerequisites and more.