Women Who Quit Smoking by 40 Can Live an Extra Decade
Women Who Quit Smoking by 40 Can Live an Extra Decade
The study of 1.3 million women found that quitting smoking by the age of 30 allowed women to avoid up to 97 per cent of the extra risk of premature death.
The results, which are published in The Lancet medical journal, showed that lifelong smokers died a decade earlier than those who did not smoke at all.
Those who stopped at thirty lost an average of a month of life and if they stopped at 40 they died a year younger.
Most of the increased death rate resulted from smoking-related diseases such as lung cancer, chronic lung disease, heart disease or stroke.
The risk rose steeply with the quantity of tobacco smoked, but even light smokers who puffed fewer than 10 cigarettes a day doubled their likelihood of dying.
The authors of the Million Women Study wrote: “Smokers lose at least 10 years of lifespan. Although the hazards of smoking until age 40 years and then stopping are substantial, the hazards of continuing are 10 times greater.”
