Smoking one cigarette can cut 20 minutes off life span
A recent study has suggested that smoking one cigarette can remove about 20 minutes from a person’s life expectancy.
In the study, published in the Journal of Addiction, researchers at University College London estimated the loss of life expectancy per cigarette at about 17 minutes for men and 22 for women.
The research, commissioned by the UK Department for Health and Social Care, includes mortality data on men from the British Doctors Study and data on women from the Million Women Study.
The studies found that on average, people who smoked throughout their lives lost around 10 years of life compared with people who never smoked.
Sarah Jackson, a principal research fellow in the UCL Alcohol and Tobacco Research Group and lead author of the paper, said “20 cigarettes at 20 minutes per cigarette works out to be almost seven hours of life lost per pack”.
“The time they’re losing is time that they could be spending with their loved ones in fairly good health,” Jackson said.
“With smoking, it doesn’t eat into the later period of your life that tends to be lived in poorer health. Rather, it seems to erode some relatively healthier section in the middle of life.
“So when we’re talking about loss of life expectancy, life expectancy would tend to be lived in relatively good health.”
The data indicates that the harm caused by smoking is cumulative and the amount of life expectancy that can be recovered by quitting may depend on several factors, such as age and how long someone has smoked.
Jackson noted that quitting smoking is undoubtedly the most beneficial step for one’s health, adding that “the sooner you stop smoking, the longer you’ll live”.
“In terms of regaining this life lost, it is complicated,” she said.
“These studies have shown that people who quit at a very young age – so by their 20s or early 30s – tend to have a similar life expectancy to people who have never smoked.
“But as you get older, you progressively lose a little bit more that you then can’t regain by quitting.
“But no matter how old you are when you quit, you will always have a longer life expectancy than if you had continued to smoke. So, in effect, while you may not be reversing the life lost already, you’re preventing further loss of life expectancy.”
Some smokers may live well into old age, others may develop smoking-related diseases and pass away in their 40s. Individual differences in smoking habits and susceptibility to the toxic substances present in cigarette smoke largely drive the variation.
