Smoking cigarettes can cause even more health problems than previously known, including liver and colon cancer, blindness, diabetes, and erectile dysfunction, said a major US government report.
Top US health officials gathered at the White House to announce the latest Surgeon General's findings on the health consequences of smoking, five decades after the first landmark report of its kind alerted the public that smoking caused lung cancer.
Smoking remains the leading preventable cause of premature death in the United States, killing nearly half a million Americans a year.
"Amazingly, 50 years in we are still finding out new ways that tobacco maims and kills people," said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Thomas Frieden.
"Tobacco is even worse than we knew it was."
Active smoking is now known to be a cause of 13 different cancers, as well as diabetes and age-related macular degeneration, said the report.
Smoking can also cause tuberculosis, erectile dysfunction, facial clefts in babies, ectopic pregnancy, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammation, impaired immune function, and worsens the outlook for cancer patients and survivors.
Those who do not smoke but are exposed to second-hand smoke face an increased risk of stroke, said the report.
More than 20 million people in the United States have died from smoking related diseases and illnesses caused by second-hand smoke.
Another 16 million people suffer from smoking-related conditions.
"Enough is enough," said Acting Surgeon General Boris Lushniak, warning that modern cigarettes are more potent and more dangerous than ever.
"How cigarettes are made and the chemicals they contain have changed over the years, and some of those changes may be a factor in higher lung cancer risks," he said.
Smoking rates are declining in the United States. Eighteen per cent of people in the US now smoke compared to 42 per cent five decades ago.
But if the current smoking rate does not drop further, one in 13 children alive today will be felled by a disease linked to smoking, the report added.
Smoking rates are also declining in Australia. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 20 per cent of males and 16 per cent of females (aged 18 years and over) smoked in 2011-12 compared to 27 per cent of men and 21 per cent of women in 2001.
US research released last week showed that despite a cut in the smoking rate globally, the number of smokers in the world has climbed from 721 million in 1980 to 967 million in 2012 due to population growth and the gaining popularity of cigarettes in the developing world.
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