Health effects of tobacco

The health effects of tobacco are the effects that use of tobacco has on human health, and concern about health effects of tobacco has a long history. Research has focused primarily on cigarette tobacco smoking. In 1950, Richard Doll published research in the British Medical Journal showing a close link between smoking and lung cancer. Four years later, in 1954, the British Doctors Study, a study of some 40,000 doctors over 20 years, confirmed the suggestion, based on which the government issued advice that smoking and lung cancer rates were related.