Cigarette Smoking: a Main Preventable Cause of Death

Published on February 20, 2009 4:38 AM

Every year more and more people die because of cigarettes smoking. That’s why Center for Disease Control investigated the smoking rates and the deaths caused by cigarette smoking across the nation.
According to recent study Kentucky has the country's highest death rates from smoking.
Smoking death rates were found using death certificate data from 2000 through 2004, focusing on lung cancer and 18 other diseases caused by cigarette smoking.
West Virginia and Nevada ranked second and third among U.S. states with the highest smoking mortality rates, with Utah and Hawaii showing the lowest smoking death rates.
Kentucky had about 371 deaths out of every 100,000 adults age 35 and older, almost one-and-a-half times higher than the national median of 263 per 100,000, and almost three times the rate for Utah, which was 138 per 100,000.
The researchers reported also that they found that smoking deaths among males were higher than among females, but smoking rates dropped for men in 49 states since the late 1990s, while they declined for women in only 32 states.
Scientists added that smoking, especially when is combined with obesity and other risk factors for heart disease, "is like gasoline on the fire."
Kentucky and West Virginia also had the highest smoking rates in 2004 as well, according to the CDC report.