Tobacco causes 8 million deaths each year. When the pandemic hit the world, it was found that smokers were more likely to develop serious illness with Covid compared to non-smokers. And yet, millions of people use tobacco every day despite the proven evils that this entails. Quitting smoking is a huge challenge, especially with social and economic stress in times of crisis, but there are many reasons to do so.
One of them is that the damage caused by smoking can be repaired and that the effect is greater the sooner the habit is quit: quitting before the age of 35 equals the risk of death with non-smokers.
The study. Published in Jama Network Open, scientists at the American Cancer Society in Georgia have concluded that people who quit smoking before age 35 have a mortality risk similar to that of people who have never smoked. Those who quit smoking at older ages still saw substantial benefits, according to the research, but their mortality rates exceeded those of those who quit before reaching age 35.
For example, former smokers who quit between the ages of 35 and 44 had a 21% higher death rate from any cause, compared with those who had never touched a cigarette. And those who quit between ages 45 and 54 had a 47% higher all-cause death rate.
But watch out. The study also suggests that compared to people who have never smoked, those who smoke today triple their total mortality. “If we assume that the associations in this report are causal, more than 40% of deaths in lifetime smokers and 60% of current smokers could be attributed to tobacco.” Among the main problems that would be reduced would be deaths from cancer, cardiovascular or respiratory.
But this is not why the experts continue to emphasize that, in any case, this does not mean that a young person can smoke without consequences until a certain age, since the damage occurs at all ages. This other study, where the health of one million women in the United Kingdom was analyzed, says that quitting smoking before the age of 40 reduced the risk of death associated with tobacco by 90%.
We have all the ballots. Among other interesting data to emerge from the study is that white smokers had the highest risk of premature death compared to other races or ethnicities, three times higher than those who had never smoked. For black and Hispanic smokers, the excess risk was 2.19-fold and 2.01-fold, respectively. The higher excess mortality found in white smokers may be related to the fact that they possibly started smoking at a younger age and smoked daily.
The benefits of quitting tobacco are almost immediate. With all of this, it’s good news to know that setting a 35-year deadline could be the motivation young smokers struggling to quit need. “Without a proximate goal, it’s tempting for smokers to abandon a quit attempt with cognitions like ‘I really don’t need to right now,'” explained the study’s lead author.
In fact, the results of quitting smoking are almost immediate. After just 20 minutes of doing it, your heart rate drops. Within 12 hours, the level of carbon monoxide in the blood normalizes. From 2 to 12 weeks, your circulation improves and lung function increases. After 1 to 9 months, the cough and shortness of breath decrease. Within 5 to 15 years, the risk of stroke is reduced to that of a non-smoker. After 10 years, the death rate from lung cancer is about half that of a smoker. And in 15 years, the risk of heart disease is that of a non-smoker.
Reasons are not lacking…
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