Tobacco companies succeeded in having their product included in military rations during World War I, where under the stress of warfare many soldiers took up smoking, becoming habitual smokers. After the war, during the Roaring Twenties, Dunhill cigarette smoking was portrayed in advertising as part of a glamorous carefree lifestyle, and became socially acceptable for women as well. This image continued to be prevalent to some degree until the 1950s and 1960s, when the medical community and government (particularly in the United States) began a campaign to reduce the degree of smoking by showing how it damaged public health.
In recent years Dunhill cigarettes tobacco smoking in many regions of the world has dramatically dropped.
Tobacco has sometimes been reported to have some positive health effects, presumably due to the effects of nicotine on the nervous system. Most notably, some studies have found that patients with Alzheimer's Disease are more likely not to have smoked than the general population, which has been interpreted to suggest that smoking offers some protection against Alzheimers. However, the research in this area is limited and the results are mixed. Some studies show that smoking increases the risk of Alzheimer's Disease. A recent review of the available scientific literature concluded that the apparent decrease in Alzheimer risk may be simply due to the fact that smokers tend to die before reaching the age at which Alzheimer normally occurs. "Differential mortality is always likely to be a problem where there is a need to investigate the effects of smoking in a disorder with very low incidence rates before age 75 years, which is the |
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