Written By: Nirmalya Dutta | Updated : July 11, 2013 12:22 PM IST
A study conducted by an Indian researcher and published in PLOS magazine suggests that better anti-tobacco laws and increased taxes could prevent cardiovascular diseases including stroke and heart attacks and would yield substantial health benefits. The results of this study, conducted by Sanjay Basu and colleagues of Stanford University, USA, suggest that specific tobacco control strategies would be more effective than others for the reduction of CVD deaths over the next decade in India and possibly in other low- and middle-income countries.
Cardiovascular diseases are conditions that affect the heart and/or the blood vessels. CVD has been a major cause of illness and death in high-income countries for many years, and now the burden of CVD is rapidly rising in low- and middle-income countries as well. The authors investigated which tobacco control measures could best reduce the burden of CVD effectively in low- and middle-income countries by using a mathematical model.
Their microsimulation model estimated the effects of various tobacco control measures and pharmacological therapies on deaths from heart attack and stroke in India between 2013 and 2022. Five different tobacco control measures were compared in the model: smoke-free legislation, tobacco taxation, provision of brief cessation advice by health care providers, mass media campaigns, and advertising bans.
In addition, other factors such as increased access to aspirin, antihypertensive drugs, and statins were simulated for their effect on deaths from heart attack and stroke. The authors conclude that, based on their model, smoke-free legislation and tobacco taxation are expected to be the most effective strategies for reducing heart attack and stroke deaths over the next decade. These two measures alone could prevent about 9 million deaths from heart attack and stroke in India by 2022, and a combination of tobacco control policies and pharmacological interventions could prevent even more deaths.
Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, one of India's most renowned anti-tobacco campaigners and cancer surgeon at the Tata Memorial Hospital laments that despite it being a well-known fact that tobacco usage causes over 50% of cancer cases, the product still gets to be sold so easily. 'It is a well-known fact 50% of all cancer cases caused in India are caused by tobacco use. In my work (I am a Professor and Cancer Surgeon at the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai), I see young people affected with the most horrible cancers every day and most of them die within weeks of diagnosis. Tobacco kills every third user prematurely through cancer, heart attack, stroke, etc. You will realise the sheer gravity of the situation when you realise that over 27 crore Indians are hooked to tobacco. Consider this, he World War II considered the deadliest conflict in human history had over 50 million casualties. In comparison, it's estimated that tobacco has killed 1 billion people in the last century.'
Read: Forget Railgate and Coalgate, clamp down on Tobaccogate
