A new study has revealed how many minutes every stick of cigarette a person puffs takes off the person’s life alongside what happens when they quit.
According to new research, every cigarette a person smokes will take an average of 19.5 minutes off your life.
The study, conducted at University College London, determined that women lose 22 minutes and men 17 minutes for every cigarette they smoke.
The research also found that quitting smoking at any age can make a difference in one’s lifespan.
The research, commissioned by the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care, offers a starker picture for smokers than before. Previous estimates were that each cigarette shaved 11 minutes off a lifetime.
The new research indicates that smoking one pack of 20 cigarettes shortens life by nearly 7 hours.
Even a single cigarette a day has a major impact: Smoking just once daily for 10 years can shorten a man’s life by 62,050 minutes, or 43 days. For women, life is shortened by 80,300 minutes or nearly 56 days.
“Smoking is an expensive and de@dly habit, and these findings reveal the shocking reality of this addiction, highlighting how important it is to quit,” said Public Health Minister Andrew Gwynne.
The math works out that quitting the bad health habit can buy back hours, days and even weeks of life.
“The evidence suggests people lose, on average, around 20 minutes of life for each cigarette they smoke. The sooner a person stops smoking, the longer they live. Quitting at any age substantially improves health and the benefits start almost immediately,” Sarah Jackson, Principal Research Fellow, UCL Alcohol and Tobacco Research Group, said.
“It’s never too late to make a positive change for your health and there are a range of effective products and treatments that can help smokers quit for good.”
Dr. Sarah Jarvis noted that smoking also contributes to lots of health issues including heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, dementia and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
And 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.
“Studies suggest that smokers typically lose about the same number of healthy years as they do total years of life,” they said.
(LIB)