Smoking greatest risk factor for death

This article presented the results of the Whitehall 1 study, which looked at several risk factors for mortality after colorectal cancer. Some of the factors they looked at: age, smoking, body mass index, diabetes, blood pressure, and physical activity levels. Their statistics showed that age and smoking were the only two factors associated with mortality. They even went as far as to conjecture that the decreasing prevalence of people smoking in the UK (this study came out of Glasgow) contributed to the falling mortality rates seen in colorectal cancer. Of course, correlation doesn't equal causation, but the "duh" factor to their results that smoking kills even in cancer is pretty high. Though I do find it weird that diabetes seemed to have no effect on survival in this population. Maybe we're just getting so good at treating it because we have so much experience with it.

Citation:

  Morrison et al 2011,  Risk factors for colonic and rectal cancer mortality: evidence from 40 years' follow-up in the Whitehall I study; J Epidemiol Community Health. [Epub ahead of print]