Smoking not only shortens a person's life, but may also make daily life harder to manage in old age. Most smokers are well aware that the habit may shorten their lives but what they may not realise, and what is so clearly evident in the following study, is that the effect of smoking is there in their lives every day. Researchers studied 1,658 men who were healthy and between the ages of 40 and 55 at the start of the study. At that time, 37 percent said they had never smoked, while 39 percent were former smokers and the rest were current smokers. Over the next 26 years, the majority of smokers eventually quit. Still, it was found that men who had smoked in middle age tended to die earlier; those who had smoked heavily in middle age - 20 or more cigarettes per day -- died an average of 10 years sooner than men who had never smoked. Smokers also tended to have more problems with their physical functioning including difficulties with daily activities like walking short distances, climbing stairs, carrying groceries and bathing as they grew older and had a poorer quality of life. Men who had quit smoking after the study's start did not catch up with never-smokers in terms of physical functioning. That's not good news for people who quit smoking after middle age. However quitting is known to lower the risks of smoking-related diseases and premature death. So even though quitting smoking may not fully reverse all of the habit's negative health effects, it is always beneficial. The earlier in life a smoker can quit, the better, and the best choice, of course, is to never take up the habit.
Archives of Internal Medicine
October 2008