Every Puff on a Cigarette Equates to Minutes Subtracted from Your Lifespan, New Study Cautions
New Year's resolution-makers looking to give up smoking might find this additional motivation: New research indicates that each cigarette you light up could subtract almost half an hour from your life.
Researchers at University College London conducted the study, which is a revision of earlier estimates regarding the detrimental impact of smoking. Based on updated data, they determined that one cigarette could trim around twenty minutes off the average person's life span. The researchers emphasize the importance of quitting smoking as soon as possible, they claim.
Plenty of studies and heartbreaking stories have underscored the lethality of smoking. Smoking can harm almost every organ and enhance the risk of severe health issues like emphysema, heart disease, and lung and mouth cancers, to name a few. However, the UCL researchers wanted to provide a more accurate gauge of the damage smoking inflicts on our lifespans using the most recent data available.
A 2000 survey of British smokers previously estimated that each cigarette consumes about 11 minutes of a person's life on average. This figure was based on assumptions derived from data on men alone, including studies comparing the average death age of smokers to non-smokers. This time around, the UCL researchers analyzed data from female smokers in the U.K. as well and used more recent data on the daily cigarette consumption of British men and women.
The research found that people who never quit smoking could lose between 10 to 11 years off their life expectancy relative to non-smokers, which exceeds the previous estimate of 6.5 lost years. They also found that each cigarette cost around 20 minutes of life, with men losing 17 minutes and women losing 22 minutes.
Most of these lost minutes, the researchers point out, are taken from a person's middle and healthier years rather than at the end of their life. In other words, smokers may experience the typical health issues associated with aging for the same duration but at a faster pace. For example, a 60-year-old lifelong smoker is estimated to have the typical health of a 70-year-old nonsmoker.
“These are minutes that would likely be spent in relatively good health,” the researchers wrote in their paper, which was published Sunday in the journal Addiction.
While the findings rely on some assumptions about the harms of smoking, which aren't uniform across all smokers, it's still worth quitting at any age, the researchers advise. However, they stress that the sooner you quit, the better your chances of longevity and healthiness.
“Quitting smoking at every age is beneficial, but the sooner smokers get off this [detrimental] path, the longer and healthier they can expect their lives to be,” they wrote.
Despite a general decline in smoking worldwide, smoking and secondhand smoking are still estimated to contribute to nearly half a million deaths in the U.S. annually. The researchers emphasize that it's never too late to quit, regardless of age.
The findings suggest that quitting smoking could significantly add to one's future life, as each cigarette currently estimated to cost around 20 minutes of life might be a dreadful expense in the realm of advanced technology and medical science, particularly in terms of health. Furthermore, as research progresses in the field of health and science, the exact impact of smoking on our lifespans might be revised, potentially shedding more light on the benefits of quitting at any age.
