Smoking killed most in India, China, US and Russia

Smoking is the cause of more than one in 10 deaths worldwide (equivalent to 6.4 million deaths), with over 50 per cent of these occurring in just four countries - China, India, the US, and Russia, according to latest estimates from the Global Burden of Disease study published in The Lancet.

India is also among the top 10 countries which together accounted for almost two-thirds of the world's smokers (63.6 per cent) in 2015.

Junk food consumption coupled with a sedentary lifestyle has been responsible for many ailments in people all across the world. Also smoking and tobacco consumption was pushing the number of premature deaths up. The toll due to second-hand exposure is 6 lakh. In 2015, smoking accounted for 1 in every 10 deaths.

Tobacco consumption and smoking are tied to several ailments ranging from chronic non-communicable diseases to even communicable ones such as cancer, respiratory diseases, heart diseases, stroke, et cetera. "Smoking also increases risk for tuberculosis, certain eye diseases, and problems of the immune system, including rheumatoid arthritis," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US. Oral cancer is among the primary outcomes of an increased and prolonged consumption of tobacco.

Excessive smoking has also been associated with lung cancer and other respiratory ailments.

"Despite more than half a century of unequivocal evidence of the harmful effects of tobacco on health, today , one in every four men in the world is a daily smoker," said senior author Dr Emmanuela Gakidou, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, USA.

"Smoking remains the second largest risk factor for early death and disability, and so to further reduce its impact we must intensify tobacco control to further reduce smoking prevalence and attributable burden."