The
health effects of tobacco are the effects that use of
tobacco has on human health, and concern about health effects of tobacco has a long history. Research has focused primarily on cigarette
tobacco smoking. In 1950,
Richard Doll published research in the
British Medical Journal showing a close link between smoking and lung cancer. Four years later, in 1954, the
British Doctors Study, a study of some 40,000 doctors over 20 years, confirmed the suggestion, based on which the government issued advice that smoking and lung cancer rates were related.