Smokers who quit as young adults can live almost as long as people who never smoked, found a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Smoking cuts at least 10 years off a person’s lifespan, however, a comprehensive analysis of health and death records in the United States found that people who quit smoking before they turn 40 regain almost all of those lost years.
“Quitting smoking before age 40, and preferably well before 40, gives back almost all of the decade of lost life from continued smoking,” said Dr. Prabhat Jha, lead author of the study. Dr. Jha’s team found that people who quit smoking between ages 35 and 44 regained about nine years of life, while those who quit by 45-54 and 55-64 gained six and four years, respectively. The study is unique as it examines the risks of smoking and the benefits of stopping among a representative sample of Americans. Importantly, the study is among the first to document a generation of women who started smoking when they were young and kept smoking throughout their adult lives.
Read the full article here: 21st-Century Hazards of Smoking and Benefits of Cessation in the United States
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Nearly one million annual deaths from smoking in India by 2010
February 13, 2008
Results from a CGHR study published in the New England Journal of Medicine find that India is in the midst of a catastrophic epidemic of smoking deaths. Tobacco smoking is expected that nearly one million deaths each year in India during the 2010s – including one in five of all male deaths and one in 20 of all female deaths between 30-69.
There are approximately 120 million smokers in India. More than one-third of men and about five per cent of women aged 30-69 smoke either cigarettes or bidis (which contain about a quarter the amount of tobacco as a cigarette, wrapped in the leaf of another plant called temburni). On average, male bidi smokers lose about six years of life, female bidi smokers lose about eight years and male cigarette smokers lose about ten years of life.
“It is truly remarkable that one single factor, namely smoking, which is entirely preventable, accounts for nearly one in ten of all deaths in India. The study brings out forcefully the need for immediate public action in this much neglected field”, states Professor Amartya Sen, 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics.
Read the full article here: A Nationally Representative Case-Control Study of Smoking and Death in India
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