Please note that the embargo for this paper only will be lifted at 02:00 hours (UK time) on Thursday 16 August 2001 to coincide with a press conference in China
If current smoking patterns persist, tobacco is set to cause one third of all deaths among middle aged men in China over the next few decades, predict researchers in this week's BMJ.
More than 27,000 ethnic Chinese people, aged 35 or over, whose deaths were registered in Hong Kong in 1998 were identified. Information about the medical cause of death and the dead person's smoking habits 10 years earlier was recorded and compared with living people of the same age, who served as controls.
In the general population of Hong Kong in 1998 tobacco caused about 33% of all male deaths at ages 35-69 and 5% of all female deaths (25% of all deaths at these ages). In male smokers only, tobacco caused about half of all deaths at ages 35-69.
These risks are more than twice as big as has yet been seen in mainland China. But, since cigarette consumption in Hong Kong reached its peak 20 years earlier than that in mainland China, these Hong Kong findings may well foreshadow what will happen among men throughout mainland China (and in other developing countries) over the next few decades, explain the authors.
Unless there is widespread cessation by adults who already smoke, we predict a large increase in deaths attributable to tobacco in China over the next few decades, say the authors. Two thirds of all the young men in China (but, as yet, few of the young women) become smokers. Half the smokers who persist will eventually be killed by their habit. Thus, on present smoking patterns, about one third of all the young men in China will eventually be killed by tobacco, they conclude.