Meredith Dietrich
Features Writer
Although cigarettes are the most popular forms of tobacco consumption, the use of cigars has increased over 50 percent since 1993. Various studies are now showing cigars may in fact be far worse than cigarettes.
In an ongoing study conducted since the 1970s by Royal Free and University College Medical School in London of 7,100 men who smoked cigars or pipes, 49 percent were more likely to die in the two-decade period of the study.
These men were also more at risk for heart disease, stokes, lung cancers and other diseases, compared with those men who did not smoke. These risks are equivalent to those men who smoked at least 19 cigarettes a day.
However, medical researchers have been divided as to whether cigars really are worse than cigarettes. Some believe that because the habit of smoking cigars is more infrequent than smoking cigarettes, it is less dangerous, while other researchers believe that one cigar can cause as much smoking-related disease as frequent cigarette smoking.
“Most people who smoke cigars don’t inhale, therefore they are less at risk than someone who smokes cigarettes because they do inhale,” said University of Wisconsin Professor of Psychology Timothy Baker.
Men who smoke or have smoked cigarettes in the past and choose to smoke cigars are more likely to inhale. When the smoke from tobacco is inhaled, carbon monoxide enters the bloodstream. This can cause serious injury to the cardiovascular system, including decreased size of blood vessels, increased heart rate, and worsening of the blood lipids in the body. All of these can lead to a stroke, which may be deadly.
Just as cigars and cigarettes vary in size and shape, they also vary in the amount of tobacco contained within. Cigarettes are usually uniform in size and contain less than one gram of tobacco. Larger cigars can have between five and 17 grams of tobacco in them.
Cigarettes are made up of a mixture of different types of tobacco while cigars usually contain one grade of tobacco.
“Overall, the pipe/cigar smokers, whether cigars are their primary or secondary tobacco, experienced much the same outcomes as regular light cigarette smokers,” said the researchers of the study.
Even though smoking a cigar, if not inhaling its smoke, can be less dangerous than smoking a pack of cigarettes, cigars can still cause oral cancers because the smoke affects the mucus membranes within the mouth.
“Cigars may be safer but you are still at risk of oral cancers. There are fewer oral cancers, than lung cancers, however, which is the leading disease from smoking cigarettes,” Baker said.
Tobacco use in the United States has reached its highest of 25 percent since 1970. Recently health-care in relation to smoking has cost more than $100 billion.
“All tobacco smoking, not just cigarette smoking, should be regarded as hazardous to health,” said the researchers.
UW sophomore David Glotter said he thinks smoking any tobacco is bad for you. “Although they are both incredibly bad for you, cigars may be much worse for you, but cigarettes are generally smoked in larger quantities therefore making them worse.”
