Smokeless tobacco products are not a safe substitute for tobacco smoking. Harmful health effects include:
- Mouth, tongue, and throat cancer
- Cancer in the esophagus (the swallowing tube that goes from your mouth to your stomach)
- Stomach cancer
- Pancreatic cancer
- Increased risk of heart disease, heart attacks, and stroke
- Addiction to nicotine
- Leukoplakia (white sores in the mouth that can become cancer)
- Receding gums (gums slowly shrink from around the teeth)
- Bone loss around the roots of the teeth
- Abrasion (scratching and wearing down) of teeth
- Tooth loss
- Stained teeth
- Bad breath
Leukoplakia is a white sore or patch in the mouth that can become cancer. Many studies have shown high rates of leukoplakia at the place in the mouth where users place their chew. One study found that nearly 3 of 4 of daily users of moist snuff and chewing tobacco had non-cancerous or pre-cancerous lesions (sores) in the mouth. The longer you use oral tobacco, the more likely you are to have leukoplakia.
Tobacco can irritate or destroy gum tissue. Many regular smokeless tobacco users have receding gums, gum disease, tooth decay, and bone loss around the teeth. The surface of the tooth root may be exposed where gums have shrunken. All this can cause teeth to loosen and fall out.
Smokeless tobacco may also play a role in heart disease and high blood pressure. Results from a large American Cancer Society study showed that men who switched from cigarettes to snuff or chewing tobacco had higher death rates from heart disease, stroke, cancer of the mouth and lung, and all causes of death combined than former smokers who stopped using all tobacco products. It is unclear whether the heart disease was caused by the smokeless tobacco products in this study, because there have been few large, long-term studies to identify all of the health problems caused by these products.
The snuff and chewing tobacco products most widely used in the United States have very high levels of cancer-causing agents (carcinogens) called tobacco-specific nitrosamines. These carcinogens cause lung cancer in animals, even when injected into their blood.
How do the risks of using smokeless tobacco compare with cigarette smoking?
Smokeless tobacco products are less lethal than cigarettes. Even though they are marketed as a less harmful alternative to smoking, these products can be deadly. And they have not been proven to help smokers quit.
Smokers who delay quitting by using smokeless products between cigarettes greatly increase their risk of lung cancer. They also set themselves up for new health problems caused by smokeless tobacco.
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