Smoking is associated with diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, cancer and heart disease, because the cigar has more than four thousand substances that cause pro -inflammatory or oxidizing effects, said the head of the Tabaquismo and COPD Research Department of theNational Institute of Respiratory Diseases (INER), Raúl Sansores Martínez.

The cigar has 50 substances considered as carcinogenic, so a smoking person has a greater risk of developing lung cancer, larynx, kidney, bladder, stomach, colon, oral cavity and esophagus, said the specialist in an interview with Notimex.

He said that the nicotine addict has 60 percent more likely to develop diabetes, even if there are no family history of the disease, because the cigar increases blood sugar levels.

The probability of suffering hypertension in smokers rises to 100 percent, because like the cigar raises blood sugar levels also does so with blood pressure, triglycerides and cholesterol, so that over time there are timeA high risk of cardiac arrest or embolism.

However, "the good news is that if a person stops smoking, those pressure levels, triglycerides, cholesterol and sugar fall almost immediately," he said.

It is estimated that in Mexico there are between 10 and 14 million smokers, with ages ranging from 12 to 65 years.In addition, 70 percent of all smokers began with addiction before age 17, while three percent began before the age of ten, Sansores Martínez said.

"And less than two percent did it before the age.

At present, men are the ones who smoke the most, however, before the relationship was a woman for every three men and is now about two women for every three men.

Along with prevention activities it is importantLeave the cigar.

Sansores Martínez said that this psychological method has a 35 percent success in patients who stop smoking forever."Although it seems that it is little, they are the highest figures reported in the world," he recalled that nicotine is the most addictive drug.

The specialist, who organized the First Congress of Intervention and Research in Smoking held in recent days, added that INER conducts various research to know what are the therapeutic interventions, both pharmacological and behavioral, more important against this addiction.

In addition, the institute continues with the study of smoking risk in lung function, as well as genetic factors for a person to be addicted to nicotine.