Posted on 11/30/2016 9:34:10 PM PST by nickcarraway
Older people who smoke may think there's no reason to give up the habit. After all, hasn't the damage to their bodies already been done?
But it turns out there's a benefit to quitting even later in life. Research published Wednesday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine finds that older adults who quit smoking in their 60s had a lower chance of dying in the years that followed than contemporaries who kept smoking.
"It's never too late," says Sarah Nash, an epidemiologist and one of the study's authors.
The results are based on data from more than 160,000 participants older than 70 who were part of the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. Participants completed questionnaires about their smoking history in 2004 or 2005 and were tracked until the end of 2011 to see who had died.
The study found that it's definitely best to avoid smoking entirely. During the follow-up period, 12 percent of participants who never smoked died, compared to 33 percent of current smokers. And the earlier people quit the better, but there was still a benefit even for late quitters. Of those who quit in their 30s, 16 percent died. In their 40s: 20 percent. In their 50s: 24 percent. And in their 60s: 28 percent.
Still, people who quit in their 60s had a 23 percent lower risk of death during the study than current smokers, says Nash, who conducted the research while she was a fellow at the National Cancer Institute.
One limitation of the study is that the "current smoker" category included anyone who was smoking when they completed the questionnaire, which means it likely included people who went on to quit during the follow-up period. But if that happened to a significant degree, the true mortality gap between people who smoke and those who quit would only be larger.
The researchers also looked at deaths from smoking-related diseases, including lung cancer, heart disease and respiratory infections, and saw similar trends.
The research also reinforces the well-known point that it's important to try to prevent people from picking up the habit in the first place. Most smokers start during their teenage years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And among current smokers, the earlier the study participants started, the higher their likelihood of dying during the follow-up period. Of those who started when they were younger than 15, 38 percent died, compared to 23 percent of those who started when they were 30 or older.
To Quit Smoking, It's Best To Go Cold Turkey SHOTS - HEALTH NEWS To Quit Smoking, It's Best To Go Cold Turkey Until now there have been hints from other research, but no solid proof, that people in their 60s and 70s could benefit from quitting.
"Based on less substantial data, we've been telling the public that it's never too late to quit, because it will benefit health and prolong life," says Norman Edelman, a physician and senior scientific adviser to the American Lung Association who wasn't involved with the study. Now, he says, he'll have more concrete evidence to offer to patients, especially to older smokers who assume that the damage from years of tobacco use can't be reversed.
Edelman says he gives the same smoking cessation advice to older smokers as to younger ones: Use a program (the ALA has its own, as does the American Cancer Society) in conjunction with pharmaceutical help, such as nicotine replacement products or prescription medications (such as Chantix or Zyban). Your odds of success are greater if you use both, he says.
He says older smokers should be sure to speak with their physicians about potential side effects of tobacco cessation medications.
What about eating too much?
That too.
Clean living is so boring.
that’s what’s happened to me.
I quit smoking the end of March, after 50 year.
Now I’m eating everything I see. I’m starting to get “thick”.
Three of my paternal grandparents smoked or chewed into their mid 90’s. My 4th grandparent died of infection after a surgery in the 1950’s. Dad is 83 and in fantastic health, never smoked, mom died at 47 to cancer, never smoked. I don’t smoke but like the smell, as long as I’m not cooped up.
I need to quit......I’m almost 69. I’ve quit before with Chantix and have some the doc gave me recently but can’t seem to get in the right frame of mind to do it. It helped me before so I know it will work. I have COPD and I’m stupid......still smokin’. I guess I’m nuts too.....sigh
California just passed an additional $2.00 a pack tax on cigarettes. I had two packs left out of a carton. When I finished them I took up E-cigs. My intention is to wean myself off of nicotine altogether. I can say just going to the E-cigs I feel a lot better. Cheaper too. Just my way of saying FU to Tom Steyer.
You might be able to shift that into a lucrative youtube channel where you eat 50 thousand calories of cake and ask for donations.
;)
And the success rate is abysmal when compared to using inhaler style devices which don't have medical patents to exploit (not to mention the considerable payoffs pharmaceutical aides get from state tobacco taxes...)
I've been able to get multiple people to quit with extremely little effort using the disfavored vaporizers with a near 100% success rate. (Alas, the only failures were people who had to travel to areas where smoking rates are much higher than the US and it was just too easy to pick back up the habit.)
It really burns me (figuratively) that so many zealots are out there campaigning against very simple, safe and effective devices only because the things 'look' like they are smoking.
Had these come from Pfizer with a fancy prescription and multi-hundred dollar dose bottles, they'd be heralded as a 'miracle cure' for smoking.
E-cigs are also getting the tax applied.
So, because the units you buy are more efficient...in terms of tobacco delivery.....you will see an increase in e-cig price by about 60% come January.
Closed down my website selling ecigs a few months ago. Selling all my stock to someone in Texas and calling it a wash.
Big tobacco beat us. We knew it was coming, but they finally did it. Had enough lobbyists offering taxes on measurable amounts of nicotine the government folded and took their money.
“Three of my paternal grandparents smoked or chewed into their mid 90’s.”
That’s interesting, but the story of how you have three paternal grandparents would be more interesting.
Let us not forget about ethanol consumption. Been a hard 27 years. Nothing about giving up sex. Real people aren’t into the pizza kind, the plain homo kind, or any of the other depravity of the last 27 years. Have at it like rabbits.
Just TRY to make me quit.....you’ll be dead long before I will be.
Steyer has helpfully made sure that ‘e-cigs’ and ‘related devices’ (IE anything which pharmaceutical companies aren’t pushing) will be ‘taxed to equate a pack of cigarettes’ - with nothing at all in the legislation to limit such taxes... That cheaper part is just about to completely disappear.
I really hope that whomever Trump gets into the FDA puts an end to the whole campaign there against vaping.
Also, what’s the point of living to be 100 or more ?
Bury me with a half smoked, $10 cigar.
Yep, so that one bottle I used to sell for 9 bucks (30ml)....is comparable to 3 cartons of smokes (nicotine content).
2 bucks a pack, 10 packs to the carton, makes that one bottle of eliquid cost 69 dollars.
With 60 bucks going to California, 4 bucks to the manufacturer, and 5 bucks to me.
Easy to see why I quit providing the products.
Oh, my lord, anything but that!
Hence the weaning. I don’t intend on paying Tom Steyer’s pre tax hike in preparation to him buying the governorship of California.
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