Smoking was linked to more than 70 percent of the cancer death burden among Massachusetts men in 2003, UPI quoted researchers as saying. Lead author Bruce Leistikow, an associate adjunct professor of public health sciences at the University of California at Davis, used National Center for Health Statistics data to compare death rates from lung cancer to death rates from all other cancers among Massachusetts males. The assessment, published in BMC Cancer, revealed that the two rates changed in tandem year-by-year from 1979 to 2003, with the strongest association among males ages 30 to 74 years. "This study provides support for the growing understanding among researchers that smoking is a cause of many more cancer deaths besides lung cancer," Leistikow said in a statement. "The full impacts of tobacco smoke, including secondhand smoke, have been overlooked in the rush to examine such potential cancer factors as diet and environmental contaminants. As it turns out, much of the answer was probably smoking all along."
