Hazards for the individual cigarette user: 1990s US/UK evidence.1
- About half of the teenagers who continue to smoke steadily will die as a result: about one-quarter in old age, plus one-quarter in middle age.
- Those killed by tobacco in middle age (35-60) lose an average of 20 to 25 years of nonsmoker life expectancy.
- Most of those killed by tobacco were not particularly "heavy" smokers, but most did start smoking in their teenage years.
Smoking cessation works. Even in middle age, stopping smoking before getting cancer or some other serious disease avoids most of the later excess risk of death from tobacco (and the benefits of stopping at earlier ages are even greater).
Because the body is still developing during the teen years, smoking during these years may cause even more damage.
1 Peto A, Lopez AP, Boreham J, et al. Mortality from tobacco in developed countries: indirect estimates from national statistics. Lancet. 1992;339:1268-1278. |
