Smoking is the leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality worldwide. More than 1 billion deaths have been projected to be attributed to tobacco smoking in the 21st century should the current smoking trend persists.1 Its detrimental effects on health are wide-ranging: from the highly feared carcinogenic effects to damage to the respiratory (such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and smoking-related interstitial lung disease), cardiovascular (for example, myocardial infarction) and cerebrovascular (such as cerebrovascular accidents and cognitive impairment) systems.
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