WASHINGTON: Smoking cigarettes can cause even more health problems than previously known, including liver and colon cancer, blindness, diabetes, and erectile dysfunction, said a major US government report on Friday.

Top US health officials gathered at the White House to announce the latest Surgeon General’s findings on the health consequences of smoking, five decades after the first landmark report of its kind alerted the public that smoking caused lung cancer.

Smoking remains the leading preventable cause of premature death in the United States, killing nearly half a million Americans a year.

“Amazingly, 50 years in we are still finding out new ways that tobacco maims and kills people,” said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Thomas Frieden.

“Tobacco is even worse than we knew it was.” Active smoking is now known to be a cause of 13 different cancers, as well as diabetes and age-related macular degeneration, said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Thomas Frieden.

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