The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine Evidence presents the study Smoking Cessation and Short- and Longer-Term Mortality . It is based on data from almost 1,5 million people in Norway, the UK, the US and Canada. They have been followed for 15 years and during that time, just over 120,000 of the people have died. Thanks to the large amount of material, the researchers have been able to study in detail the consequences of smoking as well as of quitting smoking.
– Whether you smoke or not has an extremely large impact on how long you live. We have adjusted for overweight, alcohol use and education, and this means that these factors have virtually no impact on the results. It is smoking that has an impact on how long you are expected to live, says Inger Torhild Gram.
Women and men who smoke die an average of twelve years earlier, the study shows. But it also shows that it's never too late to quit smoking.
– When you have been smoke-free for three years, you have already received a major health benefit in the form of living longer. Quitting is much more effective than previously thought and the gain in life years comes faster than we previously knew, says Professor Inger Torhild Gram.
Quitting before 40 removes risk
A person who has smoked since adolescence and manages to quit before the age of 40 has the same number of years of life expectancy as someone of the same age who has not smoked. Those who quit between the ages of 40 and 49 can extend their lives by an average of six years, and those who quit between the ages of 50 and 59 gain an average of 2,5 years of health compared to continuing to smoke. Even at older ages, quitting smoking provides health benefits.
– It makes sense to quit even if you are 60 years old and have smoked your whole life.
Inger Torhild Gram is a doctor herself and knows how annoying it can be to talk to patients about smoking. She hopes the new results will give healthcare professionals even more courage to do it anyway. She also hopes it will lead to political decisions that make it easier to quit smoking, such as good access to counseling and subsidies for smoking cessation medications.
Snus is not a solution
At the same time, Inger Torhild Gram is clear that the health risks of smoking should not be remedied by people switching to other tobacco and nicotine products, such as snus and e-cigarettes.
– Both snus and e-cigarettes are harmful to health. What we have seen is that you have an effect from quitting smoking. If you then start snus or vaping, you will have health damage, it may be that you remove the entire effect. When it comes to snus, it also lowers the probability of successfully quitting smoking. This also applies to e-cigarettes, says Professor Inger Torhild Gram.
Source:
Smoking Cessation and Short- and Longer-Term Mortality
https://tobaksfakta.se/snus-kan-forsvara-rokavvanjning-enligt-norsk-studie/
