New research has highlighted the importance of developing effective tobacco control policies and campaigns to curb the high smoking levels in Asia. Failure to do so could see 160 million current smokers die before 2050, with the vast majority of these deaths occurring in China.

The research, conducted in the Asia-Pacific region, confirms that cigarette smoking substantially increases the risk of lung cancer in both Australia/New Zealand (ANZ) and Asia, but highlights the continuing popularity of cigarette smoking across large parts of Asia, including China, where the harmful effects of smoking are still not widely understood or appreciated.

The research paper’s author, Dr Rachel Huxley, Director of Nutrition and Lifestyle at The George Institute, said that "Poor knowledge of both the harmful effects of cigarette smoking and of the benefits associated with quitting is likely to explain much of the continuing popularity of smoking among men in China, where there are an estimated 320 million smokers. There are huge numbers of lives to be saved through strategies that both alert current smokers to the dangers of smoking and encourage them to quit the habit."

"Effective action in Asia would help to avoid a significant number of the projected one billion premature deaths from smoking that would otherwise occur around the world by the end of the 21st century," added Dr Huxley.

The study of 500,000 adults, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, by the Asia-Pacific Cohort Studies Collaboration (APCSC) also found that the risks of dying from lung cancer were about twenty times higher among women who smoke compared with male smokers, a worrying finding given the increasing trend for young women to take up the habit in many countries.

The APCSC is conducting the largest-ever study of cardiovascular and other non-communicable diseases in the region. Project partners included many medical institutions in the Asia-Pacific.

The Collaboration’s primary goal is to provide direct, reliable evidence about the determinants of stroke, coronary heart disease, and other common causes of death in Asia-Pacific populations. It aims to produce region, age and sex specific estimates of the cardiovascular disease risks associated with blood pressure, smoking, cholesterol, diabetes and other major risk factors.