Is smoking a major contributing factor to high incidence of tuberculosis in the developing world? A study of tuberculosis sufferers in India suggests that it is.
The BBC reports that researchers at the Epidemiological Research Center in Madras, India, calculated that as many as half of the tuberculosis deaths among men in that country would not have occurred if it were not for smoking, and that as many as 75 percent of tuberculosis cases in the country can be traced directly to smoking.
Tuberculosis can apparently lie dormant and inactive in the lungs, but smoking reduces the lung’s natural defenses against tuberculosis.
The researchers compared 43,000 men who died in the late 1990s with 35,000 men who were still living. Of the 43,000 deaths, 4,000 were from tuberculosis and researchers estimated that only about 2,000 of those would have occurred if it hadn’t been for smoking.
The BBC quoted Indian researcher Vendhan Gajalakshmi as saying,
Almost 200,000 people a year in India die from TB because they smoked — and half of these are still only in their 30s, 40s or early 50s when they die. Our study indicates that in rural India about 12% of smokers, but only 3% of non-smokers, die prematurely from TB.
Sources:
Smoking and mortality from tuberculosis and other diseases in India: retrospective study of 43000 adult male deaths and 35000 controls.
Vendhan Gajalakshmi, Richard Petob, Thanjavur Santhanakrishna Kanakaa and Prabhat Jhac, The Lancet, Vol. 362, Issue 9383, 16 August 2003, Pages 507-515.
Smoking feeds India TB scourge. The BBC, August 15, 2003.
Study links men’s smoking, tuberculosis deaths in India. Associated Press, August 15, 2003.
Tuberculosis can involve almost every system of the body and it is essential that doctor belonging to all specialties particularly in developing world should have
skill to diagnose and treat
this common condition
in the most appropriate manner….further more patients should also know about the disease and important things about it