Quitting Smoking Boosts Life Expectancy at Any Age

TOPLINE:

Quitting smoking at any age increases life expectancy, with the most significant increases observed in younger individuals. But people who quit over age 65 can prolong death.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers analyzed the detrimental effects of smoking and the positive impacts of cessation on life expectancy in individuals aged 35-75 years.
• Age-specific death rates by smoking status were calculated using the relative risks for all-cause mortality derived from the Cancer Prevention Study II data, 2018 National Health Interview Survey smoking prevalence data, and 2018 all-cause mortality rates.
• Life tables were constructed to obtain information on the life expectancies of people who never smoked, those who currently smoked, and those who previously smoked but quit at various ages.
• Estimates of years lost due to smoking and years gained by quitting smoking were calculated for people starting at age 35 and over 10-year increments.

TAKEAWAY:

• Compared with people who never smoked, those who smoked at ages 35, 45, 55, 65, and 75 years and continued smoking throughout their lives would lose 9.1, 8.3, 7.3, 5.9, and 4.4 years, respectively.
• People who quit smoking at ages 35, 45, 55, 65, and 75 years would have life expectancies that are shorter by 1.2, 2.7, 3.9, 4.2, and 3.7 years, respectively, than those of same-age individuals who never smoked.
• Individuals who quit smoking at ages 35, 45, 55, 65, and 75 years would experience an additional 8.0, 5.6, 3.4, 1.7, and 0.7 years of life expectancy compared with those who continued smoking.
• People who quit at ages 65 and 75 years would have a 23.4% and 14.2% chance of gaining at least 1 additional year of life.

IN PRACTICE:

“This cessation benefit is not limited to young- and middle-aged adults who smoke; this study demonstrates its applicability to seniors as well. These findings may be valuable for clinicians seeking scientific evidence to motivate their patients who smoke to quit,” the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Thuy T.T. Le, PhD, from the Department of Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health in Ann Arbor and published online on June 25 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

LIMITATIONS:

The study’s estimates were according to data from 2018 and may not reflect current trends. The estimates also did not account for variability in smoking intensity among individuals.

DISCLOSURES:

The study was supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute of the US National Institutes of Health and the US Food and Drug Administration Center for Tobacco Products. The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interest.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.