Is chewing tobacco as bad for your health as smoking tobacco?

What does chewing tobacco do to someones health?

O.K. before I begin, I want to state that I am a non-tobacco user and don't really care if someone uses tobacco. I also want to state that the healthiest thing to do is be tobacco free.

So I thought I would bring some peer-reviewed scientific material into the fray rather than propaganda from anti-tobacco groups and quotes from grade school.

Is smokeless tobacco harmful to you? Yes it is from the perspective that you are predisposing yourself to certain health problems that you would not get if you did not use. These include tooth loss and gum recession. Most peer-reviewed journals put the relative increased of oral cancer anywhere from 2 to 4 times more than non-tobacco users. There have been some scholarly articles that give much higher numbers, up to 40 or 50 times that of non-users. Another commonly overlooked fact is that the incidence of oral cancer is actually higher in smokers than it is in smokeless tobacco users. Fortunately for tobacco users, the people who said you would get cancer just by trying smokeless tobacco was recalling a middle school assembly.

I'm sure your asking why about the wide range of cancer risk estimates. Well, the answer mostly lies in what these labs are testing. Sweden has one of the highest rates of tobacco use in Europe, but one of the lowest rates of diseases linked to tobacco use. Why? Smoking is banned in most public places there, so instead more people have gone into using snus. Snus is a type of chewing tobacco that comes in a pouch, like Skoal bandits. About 15% of their total population use snus, including many women. Snus no longer comes with a warning label in Europe as the EU found there to be no significant additional health risk. That does not mean that no one gets ill, but nothing is absolutely safe. I mean people drop dead from drinking too much water, so you can't put a warning label on everything. Camel is test-marketing an american type of snus currently in Austin and Portland.


One of the main reasons smoking is bad for you is Tobacco-specific nitrosamines. These are formed when amino acids in the tobacco break down and free amine groups are present. Nitrogen can react with these amines and form nitrosamines. Given a high enough concentration over time it may lead to defective cell cycle checkpoint and eventual cancer. Recent analysis has shown that in snus the level of TSNAs are about 2 parts per million. For U.S. dip (i.e.Skoal, Copenhagen) there can be five or six times the amount. U.S. chew (i.e. Beechnut, Redman) has levels comparable to that of snus. Snus uses a different curing process and this accounts for the difference.

Lastly, everyone hears about the carcinogens that are in smokeless tobacco. They are much less than what is found in smoking tobacco, but are still present. However, many of these are present in your diet or in small amounts. One example you hear a lot of is Cadmium, it is a heavy metal and used in car batteries. You get a small fraction of cadmium through dipping compared to the primary way of getting it, spinach leaves.

In conclusion, here are some quotes from an extensive and well-written review. The link is given in the sources. I suggest you not use tobacco at all, but if you do please know the facts.


"Six case-control studies were appraised that compared snus use with smoking across a
range of head, neck and gastro-intestinal cancers. These suggest that compared with
smoking, snus use has much lower health risks. Larger studies are required to increase the
precision of risk estimates, however studies also indicate that compared with non tobacco
use, snus did not lead to an increased risk for these cancers."


"Five of six studies investigating risks for fatal and/or non-fatal cardiovascular disease
(CVD) outcomes in men, including three case-control studies, a nested case-control study,
and a cohort study, found no significantly increased prevalence of CVD for snus users
compared with no tobacco use. "

Every bit as bad. Rather have throat cancer than lung cancer. Look up radical neck surgery to see how chew effects you.

Oh nooo not at all...I mean unless you don't think this is sexy

http://www.medscape.com/content/2001/00/...

This is pretty sexy too:
http://www.anti-smoking.org/images/chewl...



I hope you sense my sarcasim...

Chewing tobacco is just as bad if not worse than smoking it. It can lead to cancer of the mouth and throat as well as kill your taste buds and damage your teeth.

Believe it or not, chewing tobacco is actually worse than smoking it!! You can get cancer in your mouth!! That's just something I always heard. Why don't you look it up!!??