World No Tobacco Day, which takes places on 31 May each year, is an initiative of the World Health Organization which seeks to raise awareness about the deadly effects of tobacco, to reduce its consumption and to fight for control of the substance.
The focus this year is on the many ways that exposure to tobacco affects the health of people’s lungs worldwide, with knowledge about the effects of tobacco on general health worryingly low in some countries.
This lack of knowledge extends to the effect that tobacco use has on people’s oral health too.
With almost ten Australians diagnosed with oral cancer each day, the importance of highlighting tobacco’s harmful and deadly effects on the health of people’s teeth and gums has never been more important.
Speaking to ADA WA, Dr Camile S Farah, Oral Medicine Specialist and Director of the Australian Centre for Oral Oncology Research and Education, emphasised how harmful tobacco use can be to a person’s oral health.
“Tobacco smoking has wide-ranging effects on oral health, as it does on general health. It increases the risk for gum disease and oral cancer, can cause tooth staining and contribute to bad breath, and also decreases the body’s ability to defend itself by affecting its regenerative capabilities. It is known to cause molecular mutations in cells and tissues, hence its role in inducing oral cancer.”
The World No Tobacco Day campaign serves as a call to action, advocating for effective policies to reduce tobacco consumption and providing dentists an opportunity to begin conversations about the oral health risks associated with tobacco use, including the fact that smoking can increase a person’s risk of developing periodontitis and/or cancer of the mouth, tongue and throat.
In fact, dentists are well placed to deliver smoking cessation advice to patients, with research indicating that brief advice from a dentist incorporating personalised feedback from an oral examination increases quit rates among smokers.
An episode on the ADA’s CPD Portal’s Dental Files series, “Smoking Cessation”, which discusses how dentists can contribute to reducing community smoking rates as well as exploring a range of resources available to assist patients with quitting, can help you make these conversations as effective as possible.
Encouraging people to quit smoking remains a priority for the ADA, with one of the goals of Australia’s Oral Health Tracker, an initiative launched in partnership with partnership with the Australian Health Policy Collaboration, to reduce smoking rates to 5% by 2025 from their current 12.2% in persons over the age of 14 years.
