Department of Health advert highlights smoking damage

The Department of Health has launched a new TV campaign in an effort to raise awareness of the dangers of smoking.

The advert will run throughout this month and shows a tumour sprouting on a cigarette as it is smoked in an effort to emphasise the amount of damage the products have on a human body.

By smoking just 15 cigarettes, a genetic mutation can be triggered, potentially resulting in cancerous tumours. This alarming fact is highlighted in the advert, which is based on a study from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge.

The campaign follows recent quantitative analysis, showing that more than one in three smokers believe the health risks associated with smoking are over-exaggerated.

Cancer Research UK is among the charities that have pledged their support to the project, which aims to encourage smokers to stop and dissuade people from taking up the unhealthy habit in the first place.

Smoking stands as the biggest preventable cause of cancer and kills half of all long-term smokers.

Speaking to the Press Association, Dr Harpal Kumar, Cancer Research UK's chief executive, said: "Hard-hitting campaigns such as this illustrate the damage caused by smoking and this can encourage people to quit or may even stop them from starting in the first place.

"We have got to reduce the impact that tobacco has on the lives of far too many people - it's not a 'lifestyle choice', it's an addiction that creeps into people's lives and results in death and disease."

Dr Kumar recognised that quitting is a challenging task, but hopes the ads will give people extra motivation to stop.

Cancer Research UK has proven that the disease has an undeniable link to smoking, with the habit causing eight out of ten cases of lung cancer in Britain.

As well as this, the body found that around a quarter of all cancer deaths are related to cigarettes, underlining the obvious benefits of quitting cigarettes.

Posted by Ben Evans