New study finds cigarettes shorten life more than previous research

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A new assessment of the harms of smoking shows cigarettes shorten life expectancy even more than doctors thought in the past.

Researchers from University College London state that a single cigarette, on average, will extract about 20 minutes off of a person’s life – 17 minutes for men and 22 minutes for women.

Translated that means a typical pack of 20 smokes will abbreviate a human life by nearly seven hours.

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The flip-side good news for smokers, say the research team, is that a 10-a-day habit broken on New Year’s Day will mean gaining a full day by January 8. That life expectancy boost could extend to a week if you stay off the smokes until February 5, and a whole month if you’re smoke-free until August 5.

Even better, if you stick it out until the end of the year, you could gain 50 days of life, the researchers found.

“People generally know that smoking is harmful but tend to underestimate just how much,” said Dr. Sarah Jackson, a principal research fellow at UCL’s alcohol and tobacco research group told the Guardian. “On average, smokers who don’t quit lose around a decade of life. That’s 10 years of precious time, life moments, and milestones with loved ones.”

Health authorities agree that smoking is one of the world’s leading preventable causes of disease and death. A long history of cumulative data shows that smoking kills up to two-thirds of long-term users. Smoking also contributes to several health issues including heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, dementia and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). The authors of the study, which will be published in the Journal of Addiction, pointed out that this means not only a shortened life, but a shorter span of time with good quality of life.

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The study, commissioned by the U.K. Department of Health, draws on the latest data from the British Doctors Study, which began in 1951 as one of the world’s first large studies into the impact of smoking, as well as the Million Women Study, which has tracked women’s health since 1996.

The new assessment indicates that the life-shortening effect of each cigarette is nearly double previous estimates. A previous assessment published in the British Medical Journal in 2000 found that on average, one cigarette reduces life expectancy by about 11 minutes, according to Sky News. The latest analysis published in the Journal of Addiction almost doubled that figure to 20 minutes

Dr. Jackson emphasizes that the life expectancy cut is not by definition the end of life when most people experience chronic illness or disability anyway.

“Smoking doesn’t cut short the unhealthy period at the end of life,” Jackson told the Guardian. “It primarily eats into the relatively healthy years in midlife, bringing forward the onset of ill-health. This means a 60-year-old smoker will typically have the health profile of a 70-year-old non-smoker.”

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Although some smokers live long lives due to genetic factors, others develop smoking-related diseases and die in their 40s. The variation is driven by differences in smoking habits such as the type of cigarette used, the number of puffs taken and how deeply a smoker inhales.

The researchers stress that smokers must quit completely to attain the rewind of negative impact on life expectancy. Previous research in the BMJ found that smoking a little less will not be a successful way to cheat heart disease and stroke.

Smokers can find advice, support and resources to quit smoking on the Canadian government website.

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