November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month and statistics don’t look too promising. According to the Lung Cancer Alliance, lung cancer killed 160,390 people last year, an average of 439 people a day. It is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States, killing more people annually than breast, prostate, colon, liver, kidney and melanoma cancers combined. Most of those deaths, about 90 percent, were caused by smoking, according to the US National Cancer Institute.

“Smoking is the most lethal legal activity in our society,” says Dr. James Mulshine, a professor of internal medicine and associate provost for research at Chicago's Rush University Medical Center.

The figures should worry us, especially those smoking. In fact, recent studies have shown that the death rate for men fell from 90.6 deaths per 100,000 people in 1990 to 69.4 deaths per 100,000 in 2005, which seems encouraging, according to Dr. Michael Thun, vice president of epidemiology and surveillance research for the American Cancer Society.

“Lung cancer rates have been falling in men since 1991 since men began to quit smoking. They have leveled off in women, but are not declining. Women started smoking later than men in our society and are having more trouble quitting,” Thun says.

However, it seems that stress caused by a slowing economy, shrinking retirement accounts and rising unemployment rates appear to increase the number of cigarettes per day for people smoking already and delay quitting in those trying, according to the American Legacy Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based anti-smoking advocacy group. An online poll involving 2,375 Americans 18 years old and older showed that women smokers were more likely to smoke due to worries about economy, with 31 percent reporting they did, compared to 17 percent of men.

Also, 38 percent of lower-income smokers (those with a household income of $35,000 or less) reported that they smoke more cigarettes per day due to the economy. Those lacking a job were also more likely to increase smoking, with 29 percent smoke more compared to 17 percent of employed smokers. Not even those who had quit smoking were any different, with the survey showing that seven percent of them started smoking again, while nine percent of former smokers were tempted to resume the bad habit. But there were few those quitting the habit.

In fact, quitting smoking is something many complain having problems with no matter how big their desire. However, research shows that smokers are most successful in kicking the habit when they have a means of support, such as nicotine replacement products, counseling, prescription medicine to lessen cravings, and the encouragement of friends and family members.

Those really interested in how to best quit smoking can go to www.cancer.org, the site of the American Cancer Society, which is providing more information on Lung Cancer Awareness Month and activities done in different arias.