The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website highlights a number of scientific research articles, elaborating on the prominent clinical complications, associated with smoking. Studies estimate the following risk increase, when smoking:
- 2 to 4-fold increase in coronary heart disease
- 2 to 4-fold increase in stroke risk
- 23-fold increase in male lung cancer
- 13-fold increase in female lung cancer
- 12 to 13-fold risk of death from chronic obstructive lung diseases (e.g. chronic bronchitis and emphysema)
In essence, smoking affects all organ systems and increases your effective risk of developing more than 50 clinical pathologies.
So, does it pay to hire a smoker?
