What are the health effects of smokeless tobacco use?
Smokeless tobacco use can cause permanent gum recession, mouth sores, pre-cancerous lesions in the mouth, and cancers of the mouth and throat. Surgery needed to treat oral cancer is often expensive and disfiguring, and on average, only half of those with the disease will survive more than five years. In Canada in 2004, there were about 3,100 new cases of oral cancer (including mouth, oral cavity, and pharynx) and 1,050 deaths. Smokeless tobacco use is one of the risk factors for developing oral cancer, but it is not known how many cases or deaths are directly caused by smokeless tobacco use. Some research does show that users of smokeless tobacco are at four times the risk of developing oral cancer than non-users. In individuals with hypertension, use of smokeless tobacco may make the disease more severe because nicotine causes veins to constrict. Nicotine in smokeless tobacco can also increase the risk of acute cardiac ischemia (not enough oxygen to the heart), angina pectoris (severe
