Health effects of cigarette smoking.

Cigarette smoking, the chief preventable cause of illness and death in the industrialized nations, is a major contributor to morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. It is also the most important preventable factor in the development of lung cancer and various other malignancies, and it may also have a significant role in the pathogenesis of other diseases. Cigarette smoking, the leading cause of morbidity, disability, and death in the Western world, may be considered the most serious pandemic of our century.