A latest study has revealed that all those people who tend to think that they are offering their lungs any protection by smoking pipes or cigars instead of cigarettes are just fooling themselves.

"Inhalation of tobacco smoke by any means is deleterious", said lead author of the new study Dr. R. Graham Barr, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center.

The fact that inhalation of any type of tobacco can be the major cause of cancer has been well-publicized by American Cancer Society and the U. S. National Cancer Institute, among other prominent institutions. Some smokers, however, wrongly tend to believe that they are protecting their lungs by choosing pipes and cigars over cigarettes, as they think that the smoke is not being inhaled.

For the sake of study, the researchers analyzed the effects of cigar or pipe smoking in over 3,500 adults aged from 48 to 90 years, who were participants in a larger study of cardiovascular disease.

Details of the study have been published in the February 16 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.