Med News Today

Smoke and Die

Cigarette smoking strongly increases the risk of dying in middle age for both men and women, but kicking the habit, even at older ages, strongly decreases the risk of dying prematurely. These are the findings of the largest and longest study to date on smoking habits and consequences. The study is published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Among nearly 50,000 residents of rural Norway who were followed for 25 years, researchers found that 41 percent of men who continued to smoke heavily (at least one pack a day) died between 40 and 70 years of age compared with just 14 percent of men who never smoked. Twenty-six percent of women who were heavy smokers died between 40 and 70 years of age compared with only 9 percent of women who did not smoke.

"Our study shows that smoking strongly reduces the chances of surviving from 40 to 70 years of age," write Dr. Stein Emil Volsett of the University of Bergen and colleagues. There is a clear dose-response relationship between smoking and mortality -- survival decreases with increasing number of cigarettes smoked per day, they note.

posted by nattietodd @ 3:20 AM