2023-12-31 04:12:56
A recently published scientific study by US experts could serve as fodder for good New Year’s resolutions. Accordingly, quitting smoking quickly reduces mortality from cardiovascular, cancer and lung diseases. The risk is reduced by up to more than 60 percent in the first ten years.
“It’s never too early to quit smoking. But it’s never too late either. Today is the day it should happen – no matter what age you are,” said Blake Thomson from Stanford University in California on the scientific study that he and his co-authors recently published in the Journal of Internal Medicine of the US Medical Association (JAMA Internal Medicine) (https://go.apa.at/Ru55POCV). Even those who have already suffered shipwreck by quitting smoking should keep trying.
The scientists analyzed data from 438,015 middle-aged adults aged 47 from the US National Health Survey from 1997 to 2018. Within five million years of life, smokers experienced dramatic excess mortality. The mortality risk from cardiovascular diseases was increased by a factor of 2.3, cancer mortality by a factor of 3.38 and a death rate that was 13 times higher for fatal respiratory diseases was recorded.
But to the surprise of US scientists, those who stop smoking reduce this risk equally in all of these areas. This became apparent fairly quickly for the damage caused by smoking, which usually accumulates over many years. Within the first decade of literally putting down the last cigarette, there were major health benefits: Ex-smokers had a 64 percent lower cardiovascular mortality rate than people who continued to smoke. At the same time, cancer mortality (all malignant diseases) was reduced by 53 percent and mortality from respiratory diseases by 57 percent. All of these diseases often only develop over a period of decades.
The curve continued to point downwards. 30 years after the last cigarette, cardiovascular mortality is the same as that of never smokers. When it comes to cancer, they only have a seven percent higher mortality rate than non-smokers, and when it comes to mortality from respiratory diseases, they only have a three percent higher risk.
Study author Thomson summarized the results of the study simply and clearly as follows: “Stopping smoking is simply the best investment smokers can make for their health.” In Austria, according to Statistics Austria (2019), almost 21 percent of people over 15 still smoke.
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