Tobacco Documents Online

6 MW 12 V 4 A a .. .-.....1.~:.: TIME, 1'7i~'~'~~ Jttly 6, 1962 U T1' I1N~1' The Danger of Smoking; by pathologists. The hundreds of slides were identified only with coded numbers, ~ More Than Cancer and pathologists did not know their ori: At the American Medical Association's gin. Later statisticians were able to match ~ t"annual meeting in Chicago last week, the path'ological, findings with, the his- whenithe doctors got around to discussing tories of the dead patients. The results of, E,medicine instead of medicare, topic:A' was the study added up to an elaborate de- rs~""the dinger of'smoking. Physicians already scription of progressive smoke damage. ~;familiar withi tobacco's,implication iathe Subjected to Stress. Deeply inhaledl ~ gSowing incidence of lung cancer were smoke, the researchers found, irritates the ;tartled to bear that they had been wor. cells that line the tiniest chambers of thee litng Thellf thlli i (alveoli). was oe aveo thicken, lose their elasticity and much of' their ability to do their vital' job of'ex- changing carbon dioxide for oxygen. Sub- jected , to sudden stress-~such , as a eoyghor sneeze-the alveolar walls rupture; partt oPthe lung becomes useless. Even while it is attacking the alveoli;, dense, smoke also damages the small ar- teries that carry blood to the lung surface for oxygenation. The artery walls become fibrous and thickened. Soon, internal de- posits on the thickened walls make the arteries so narrow, that' little blood can get throughi , Eventually many tiny ar- ~~ :* ' teries are blocked completely. Damagjng Chain. These two sets of I events alone would be enougli to explain why thousands of' Americans are "lung cripples," suffering from what most U.S. doctors call pulmonary fibrosis and chronic emphysema. But the damaging chain of events runs on. The destruction of smaller blood ves- sels in the lung and the thickening, of slightly larger ones increases the blood • iO '••` pressure in the pulmonaryy arteries and -:' SrATrsrrtctA.v HAssxoNn puts a strain on the rigbt side of the heart. Right'ond left tb the heort. It also prompts the left side of the heart to work harder to pump blood against in- " rying about one of the leastof tobacco- creased resistance. A healthy heaft could caused troubles, Lung,cancer brought on probably stand the extra work; a heart by cigarette smoking„reported the Amer- already weakened by other difficulties ican Cancer,Society's ehief research stat- might fail. istician, Dr. Edward'CuydecHammond: is Even while the heart is b'eing,asked to "relativcly unimportant" compared with overexert, carbon monoxide from eiga• the damage tobacco does in a variety of rette smoke combines with red blood cells other ways. and decreases their capacitytoy carryy oxy-Focusing popular attention on the 30,- gen. As a result; the hard-working heart aoo deaths from lung cancer each yeaq muscle is given less fuel to do its job. At " said'l Dr: Hammondl, has obscuredl thee the sametime; tobacco'snicotine.causess more deadly fact that four times as a constriction of small arteries in the cx- many "excessl' fatalities among cigarette tremities and speeds up the heart, in- addicts are due to a long and tangled creasing its need for oxygen and compli- ehain, of events. Between puffs on his cating the coronary problem. pipe, he reported that deeply inhaled Snuffing Out Smokers:, Hammond & cigarette smoke sends a threat of pre- Co: were careful not to suggest that smok- mature death spreading,through the lungs, ing is a basic cause of either high bloodl arteries and the heart itself. pressure or coronary artery disease. But Speaking for a group of distinguished along with other A.M.A. panelists, they pathologists and statisticians,s Dr. Ham- agreed that smoking, almost certainly mond outlined'the preliminary results of' makes such conditions worse, and they a painstaking study begun seven years agreed that the danger of'serious il.lness. C ago: AC the East Orange N.J., Veterans or death'i from such infectious lung dis- Administration Hospital. lung tissue was eases as influenra" pneumonia and tuber- obtained from 227 postsmortems„put oni culbsis is inereasedlif the lungs have been microscope slides, and carefully examined I damaged by smoke. By week's- end the A.MIA'. and the American Cancer Society seemed more • The.otbbn: ~'ARattiol6¢i¢tUxar Auerbarh~ concerned than ever over the medical Columbia. Univeniay, Su~r¢ical Pathologist Ih problems, involved with tobacco. The eitty. A.14fA-'s new president, Dr:, George M. --•--T---T-- !~. Ar- .. - ur Purdy Stout; . and American Cancer So- Stati~tidian.Lawrence Garfinkd. , E'DIICINE. Fister, of' Ogden; Utah, announced l in his inaugural address bhat, to guide physi; oians, the ;S.MIA'. would start a year-long, study of smoking and disease. The Amer- ican Cancer Soeiety, eager to snuft' out smoking among college students, began a campaign to persuade university presi- dents to ban tobacco company sponsor= ship of radio andiTV broadcasts of inter- collegiate athletic events. r NEFiSWEQC y _ July 2 , 1962 MED'IICII1dE- Smokers' Hearts Although the suspected relationship between smoking and lung cancer has apurred broad-scale scientific investiga- tion , during the past , decade, the role of cigarettes in heart disease has had' far less attention. IDrs. E. Cuyler H2mmond and Oscar Auerbach-themselves re- speMed cancer researchers-introduced some new evidence last week on howw cigarettes may affect the heart. Reading the report before 400 i mem- ben of' the American College of' Chest Physicians in the grand ballroom of Chi- cago's Morrison Hotel, IDr: Hgntmond cdaimed that the major link between smoking and coronary heart disease .,seems to be lung damage. The evidence, the American Cancer Society investiga- • tor said, came from pathologist Auer, bach's study of lung slivers taken from 240 men, who had died of causes varySng. ` from cancer to auto accidents. Three kinds of'lung damage were prevalent in specimens from smokers: P-Pulmonary fibrosis, a thickening of'the walls of the lungjs tiny airsacs: The dis- order was most severe in,mes who had consumed two or more packs of eiga, rettes a day, b: t present in only slight degree among nonsmokers: lRupture of the air sacs, again most severee among cigarettesmokers: P-Thickening of the tiny arteries within the, lung, in some cases leading to total occlusion of'the blood vessels:. Damage to the air sacs and narrowed blood vessels„ Drs. Hammond and Auer, bach explained, raise bloodlpressure in the lungs, thus placing an extra burden on the heart. At' the same time, these lung,disorders deprive the heart muscle of' much,neededl oxygen. When added to the effects of nicotine in raising blood piessure elsewhere in the body, Drs. W-nnrl nnr} Auerbach believe these lung abnormalities explain the high in. c(dence of heart disease among smokers. 'A perfectly' normal heart can probably withstand these effects of'tobacco„" said Dr. Hammondi, "But in someone who already has atherosclerosis-and that ap- plies to most men-they can cause death.' no 7