Two questions in one

[Scotman84]

1. What percentage of people die from NON smoking related diseases?

2. Which diseases are now attributed to smoking, which existed before 'smoking' was invented in this country?

I see that the latest is that I could suffer blindness through smoking - where did that come from?

Ok - so 3 questions in one !!

[campbellking]

Have to go to work in an minute so can't give you a huge answer. Diseases related to smoking have always existed, they're not new, it's just that smoking can exacerbate your risk of getting them, for example, most mouth cancer sufferers are smokers. smoking has a direct effect on the circulation, therefore, smokers have an increased risk of peripheral vascular disease that can lead to amputations. The main other disease affecting your circulation that can lead to amputations is diabetes, and if you're a diabetic smoker, it's a kind of double whammy. Smoking is also seen to increase the risk of age related macular degeneration, which leads to progressive loss of sight.

[WoWo]

Given that until fairly recently in Human history (1700's onwards) we didn't have a clue how the body worked let alone what a diseases was, there are no specific records of which existed before smoking (Came from the America's I think 1500's)

It was only as late as the 1950's that we started to make connections between smoking and illness caused by it. This is in part to the fact that there were so many other problems likely to kill you that we couldn't deal with that people died before the effects of smoking killed them.

[Englishbird]

The stats I've found are;

- 537,877 deaths were registered in 2000

- around 114 000 deaths are attributed to smoking per year.

So you're nearly 5 times less likely to die if you're a smoker.......!

[Englishbird ducks as people start throwing things at her]

www.ash.org.uk

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/xsdataset.asp?vlnk=3731&More=Y