A study was conducted to study the risk of dying from lung cancer due to smoking. It is confirmed that low tar cigarettes do not offer any protection against lung cancer.
The study involves nearly a million men and women aged 30 or over followed for six years, and found that smokers of low tar fags smoked more cigarettes per day. It is also found that medium, low and very low tar products had the same increased risk. The only cigarettes to stand out were high tar non-filtered.
People who quitted prior to age 35 were similar to never smokers, and people who smoked low tar cigarettes were more likely to quit after a longer period (it was within 10 years). Statistically, low tar cigarettes are even more toxic since the effect was over a shorter smoking career.
The theory is that smokers compensate for low tar by inhaling more deeply and consuming more cigarettes. It is suggested that deepn inhalation may lead to more serious cancer since it spreads carcinogens further into the lungs. The other reason is that tar is not such a good measure of the carcinogens in the smoke in the first place.
The bottomline is, still, smoking kills. Be it high, medium, or low tar cigarettes. So, ditch your packs of cigarettes now.
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For Reference
Title: British Medical Journal
Author: Harris JE at el.
URL: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/
2004, vol 328, pp 72-76
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