Cigarettes, soju not keys to longevity, research confirms
Death rates for cancer patients who smoke proved to be much higher than those who do not, a medical study has shown. According to a team at the National Cancer Center, research tracking 14,578 male cancer patients for the past eight years showed that those who smoked tobacco were 1.85 times more likely to die than non-smokers. Death rates for those who smoked an average of 20 cigarettes a day were 1.31 times higher than non-smokers and the corresponding figure for those who smoked less than 20 cigarettes a day was also 1.26. Death rates among patients with lung cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, and brain and spinal cancer were 1.40, 1.48, 1.51, and 1.75 times higher than those of non-smoking patients, the research showed.But stomach cancer patients who smoked showed a death rate 17 percent lower than the non-smoking group. "People tend to dismiss risks from smoking and drinking, as non-smokers also develop cancer. But the latest research proved that the prognosis for smokers suffering from lung cancer is worse than for non-smokers," a lead researcher on the team said. Alcohol, along with smoking, is another major factor that raises death rates among cancer patients, the research showed. Death rates for those who drank an average of two bottles of soju a day were much higher than those who did not. The research also proved that death rates for those suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure were higher than those without the chronic diseases. Meanwhile, unlike conventional wisdom that says death rates among obese people with cancer are higher than those of the non-obese, the former group was 10 percent less likely to die than the latter, according to the latest research. The results of the research were published in the renowned Journal of Clinical Oncology.
