According to WHO, higher taxes are effective in reducing tobacco use, especially among lower-income groups and in preventing young people from starting to smoke. A 10% increase of tobacco tax decreases tobacco consumption by about 4% in high-income countries and by up to 8% in most low- and middle-income countries.


What’s the greatest threat to a smoker’s health? 

Lung cancer is a good guess, and a wrong answer. Cigarettes cause 124,000 lung-cancer deaths  each year, but do you know they kill even more people (138,000) via heart disease. Smokers suffer heart attacks at twice the rate of nonsmokers—and they’re less likely to survive them.

Fortunately, these effects are reversible. Quit smoking, and your risk of a heart attack drops almost immediately, returning to that of a never-smoker within five to 15 years. 

Cigarettes contain over 4,000 toxic chemicals, 50 of which are known to cause cancer and nicotine is one of them. WHO estimates passive smoking causes 600,000 deaths every year. 

Tobacco kills nearly 6 million people each year, of which more than 600 000 are non-smokers dying from breathing second-hand smoke.One-third of those killed are children who are often exposed to smoke at home, according to the WHO. 

Mrs Shilpa Mittal
Nutritionist and Diet Consultant
Founder Shilpsnutrilife – Diet and lifestylemakeover