United States – New research has shown that regardless of a person’s age, it is still possible to stop smoking, including when they are old.
Smokers who quit the cigarettes even as late as 75 can significantly raise their life expectancy, researchers have found recently in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, as reported by HealthDay.
Researchers discovered that seniors age 75 will lose, on average, more than four years of life if they continue smoking.
Key Findings:
Conversely, if a man aged 75 years and a smoker ceased the habit, he had a 14% probability of adding at least one year to his life while a 65 year’s man had 23% probability.
Researchers also discovered that about 8% of those who quit smoking at the age of 75 reckon at least a gain of four years of life expectancy compared to those who continue to smoke.
Doctors found that giving up smoking is the most effective action any person at any age can take in order to add years to his life.
Lead Researcher’s Insights
“We have seen a remarkable decline in young adult smoking over the past decade. However, rates among older adults who smoke have remained stagnant and, to our knowledge, no research had established the benefits for them of quitting,” lead researcher Thuy Le, an assistant research scientist with the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
“We wanted to show that stopping smoking is beneficial at any age and provide an incentive for older people who smoke to quit,” Le added in a university news release.
How the Study Was Conducted
To do this, Harvard researchers employed data from health survey, census and U.S death registers to develop three life expectancy table; one for those who never smoked, one for those who still smoke and the last for those who quit smoking.
Research made it clear that early quitting meant that people were saved from cutting down the years they were expected to live.
For instance, those who continue smoking from the age of 35 years will be losing an additional nine years to early death while those who continue smoking from 45 years will lose an average of seven years.
However, smokers can prevent such losses by quitting at any point, according to the research findings.
Smokers Can Gain Up to Eight Extra Years
Smoking a pack a day results to an aver- age loss of about six years for people who continue smoking past the age of sixty-five years. Researchers said that quitting at that age will gain three to eight years of life expectancy to nearly 10 percent of smokers.
“The cessation benefit is not limited to young and middle-aged adults who smoke; this study demonstrates its applicability to seniors as well,” said researcher Kenneth Warner, dean of the University of Michigan School of Public Health, as reported by HealthDay.
“While the gains from quitting at older ages may seem low in absolute values, they represent a large proportion of an individual’s remaining life expectancy,” Warner added.
