A new study reports that one-third of China's young men will likely die from tobacco-related health conditions and diseases, but that figure can drop if they quit smoking. It also showed that two-thirds of male smokers in China start as young men, and half of them would eventually die from cigarettes or cigars unless they kicked the habit forever.
The research was published in the journal The Lancet. It was conducted by Oxford University, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, and the Chinese Center for Disease Control.
The research included a pair of studies involving hundreds of thousands of participants. They were conducted 15 years apart.
Findings of the two studies showed that tobacco deaths hit 1 million by the year 2010. The figure could double by 2030 based on current trends, although that would change if more smokers quit cold turkey, according to The New York Times.
Co-author Richard Peto is from the University of Oxford. He said that young men not taking up smoking is the key to preventing the "huge wave" of tobacco-related deaths.
Smoking rates have recently plummeted in developed countries. In the United States, around 20 percent of adult men and 15 percent of women puff up. Cigarettes cause about 20 percent of all deaths.
Meanwhile, tobacco globally kills up to 50 percent of smokers. The United Nations' (UN) World Health Organization (WHO) reported that it yearly results in over 5 million deaths from direct tobacco use.
The smoking culture in China is very powerful. Many citizens are aware of the health risks, but few public programs exist for those who want to put out their last cigarette.
Tobacco products are a huge source of tax revenue for the Chinese government. That has made enforcing Beijing's recent smoking ban difficult, according to BBC.
This video is about the Beijing indoor smoking ban: