Since the 2000s, women have been dying en masse from tobacco. Yet many continue to smoke. Why Doctor met them.
The tobacco-free month is coming to an end, and the results of this third national quitting campaign are positive. More than 241,691 people registered, an increase of 54% compared to 2017. The e-coaching application designed by the French tobacco society has for example been downloaded nearly 86,000 times, and more than 21,000 people have called 39 89, the Tobacco Info Service telephone line.
The only downside, and not the least: French women, who are dying more and more of cigarettes. “I think that tobacco free month is a very good initiative, but personally, I’m not addicted, so I don’t need it”, testifies Annette. Like many of her generation, this sixty-year-old started smoking at the age of 20, for the pleasure, and has never stopped since. She grills one or two a day, without really being aware of the danger. “The important thing is not to accumulate the risks. I only smoke, I have a healthy diet, I don’t drink and I don’t take medication,” she says, convinced.
A generational effect
However, a single cigarette a day is enough to be dangerous for the heart and the arteries. According to the latest BEH, the incidence of myocardial infarction increased by 50% between 2002 and 2015 in women under 65, compared to 16% in men. Over the same period, mortality from lung cancer and COPD (a lung disease, editor’s note) increased by 71% and 3% respectively among women, while it fell by 15% and 21% among men.
Dramatic figures, which can be explained by a generational effect. In France, as in all rich countries, women started smoking long after men. The female sex is therefore only now suffering the brunt of the consequences of this addiction. “I smoked my first cigarette at 12 on the balcony of my house, on the sly, with my best friend. When I was a college student, I consumed a pack a day, minimum. It lasted at least seven At the time, it was very easy to smoke, in bars, at work, etc. I have managed to reduce a lot since then, without a substitute, because I am not addicted, but I continue to smoke a social cigarette from time to time, for the gesture”, says Peggy, 45, commercial director. “Like many of my friends, I continued to smoke a little bit during my pregnancy. Their children are in great shape, but me, my son had intrauterine growth retardation (1) and he was born much too early. It is a very premature. Even though the doctors told me it wasn’t related to smoking, if I had another pregnancy, I wouldn’t do it again,” she said.
“The first fear of smokers is to gain weight”
Pregnancy, weight gain, breast and uterine cancer, anxiety, depression, menopause… For women, smoking cessation and prevention do not raise the same issues as for men. Because of the hormonal upheaval, it is for example almost impossible to stop smoking once you are pregnant, 16.9% of French women still smoking in the third month of pregnancy.
“The first fear of smokers is to get fat, and they are right. On average, a woman gains a kilo more than a man when she stops smoking”, explains Dr Anne-Laurence Le Faou, researcher and head of the addiction center at the HEGP. “As women smokers have many more anxiety-depressive characteristics, they are also afraid of having a drop in their mood or being very anxious without cigarettes, especially when approaching menopause. We must try to find and to devote resources to meet these specific needs, such as stress management workshops or dietary monitoring, for example (2)”, she insists. Ditto for public prevention messages, which should be, according to the specialist, much more gendered. “Compared to men, women are more willing to get help to quit,” says addictologist Bertrand Dautzenberg.
“There is no question of using tobacco if I become pregnant”
Over the generations, information campaigns have nonetheless come a long way. At Adeline, who has been smoking six cigarettes a day at 22 for almost ten years, “no question of using tobacco if I get pregnant. I know my mother did it when she was expecting me, but me, it’s my shit , I don’t want to pass it on to my baby.” Same story with Alexia, 43: “I am well aware of the dangers of tobacco. I quit smoking for ten years, when I became pregnant with my daughter. There I resumed because of my divorce . I’m very surprised by the way, because I thought it was completely out of my life. I imagined smoking a cigarette or two, the time of the test, and I fell back to a pack a day “, tells this frame, the drawn face, which pays the strong price to have started as of the age of 11 years, impacting its brain irremediably. Confronted with nicotine very early on, our cerebral reward system gets into the bad habit of associating it with well-being.
While a very significant drop in daily smoking was observed between 2016 and 2017 with one million fewer smokers, smoking has not decreased among women aged 45-54, unlike all the other groups. of age. Which doesn’t surprise Annette, Peggy or Adeline, and even less Alexia. All of them have at least one woman who smokes in their close circle.
1) Smoking statistically increases this risk.
2) Weight gain is a relapse factor (along with anxiety-depressive disorders).
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