Smokers lose 10 years of lifespan


This is according to a recent article published in The Lancet that looked at the effects of smoking in women born around 1940 in the UK, which is considered the first generation in which women smoked substantial numbers of cigarettes throughout adult life.
‘Only in the 21st century can we observe directly the full effects of prolonged smoking, and of prolonged cessation, on mortality among women in the UK,’ wrote the authors.
‘Although the hazards of smoking until age 40 years and then stopping are substantial, the hazards of continuing are ten times greater. Stopping before age 40 years (and preferably well before 40) avoids more than 90 percent of the excess mortality caused by continuing smoking; stopping before age 30 years avoids more than 97 percent of it,’ the researchers, led by Kirstin Pirie of the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at Oxford University, wrote.
For the study, 1.3 million women recruited between 1996 and 2001 were asked about their smoking habits ‘ whether they were current or ex-smokers, how many cigarettes they smoked, etc. The women were followed up at three and eight years after the initial interview.
At baseline, 20 percent of women were current smokers, 28 percent were ex-smokers, and 52 percent were never smokers.
The researchers found that smokers lost at least 10 years of life due to smoking, and that two-thirds of deaths among smokers were caused by diseases like lung cancer, which is mainly caused by smoking.
Furthermore they found that while the hazards of smoking until age 40 are substantial for women, the hazards of continuing to smoke after 40 are 10 times greater.
Source: The Lancet
Author
-
Health-e News is South Africa's dedicated health news service and home to OurHealth citizen journalism. Follow us on Twitter @HealtheNews
View all posts
Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Unless otherwise noted, you can republish our articles for free under a Creative Commons license. Here’s what you need to know:
-
You have to credit Health-e News. In the byline, we prefer “Author Name, Publication.” At the top of the text of your story, include a line that reads: “This story was originally published by Health-e News.” You must link the word “Health-e News” to the original URL of the story.
-
You must include all of the links from our story, including our newsletter sign up link.
-
If you use canonical metadata, please use the Health-e News URL. For more information about canonical metadata, click here.
-
You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week”)
-
You have no rights to sell, license, syndicate, or otherwise represent yourself as the authorized owner of our material to any third parties. This means that you cannot actively publish or submit our work for syndication to third party platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. Health-e News understands that publishers cannot fully control when certain third parties automatically summarise or crawl content from publishers’ own sites.
-
You can’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually.
-
If you share republished stories on social media, we’d appreciate being tagged in your posts. You can find us on Twitter @HealthENews, Instagram @healthenews, and Facebook Health-e News Service.
You can grab HTML code for our stories easily. Click on the Creative Commons logo on our stories. You’ll find it with the other share buttons.
If you have any other questions, contact info@health-e.org.za.
Smokers lose 10 years of lifespan
by Health-e News, Health-e News
February 18, 2013
MOST READ
US funding freeze disrupts HIV, TB, and GBV support services
Healthcare coalition says NHI is “unfeasible”, proposes alternative route to universal health coverage
Kindness costs: The hidden sacrifices nurses make for patients with TB
EDITOR'S PICKS
Related

Stories From The Ground: Teen mum juggling school and a baby set to write matric finals

Stories from the ground: A mother’s journey towards beating breast cancer

Stories from the ground: EC nurse fears for her life as clinics come under siege from criminals

Stories From The Ground: Teen mum juggling school and a baby set to write matric finals

Stories from the ground: A mother’s journey towards beating breast cancer
