Tobacco causes 8 million deaths each year. When the pandemic hit the world, it turned out that smokers are more likely to develop severe illness from Covid compared to non-smokers. Yet millions of people use tobacco every day, despite the proven evils it contains. Quitting smoking is a huge challenge, especially due to the social and economic stress in times of crisis, but there are many reasons to quit.

One is that the harms of smoking are reparable and the sooner you quit, the greater the impact: quitting before age 35 is equal to the risk of death for non-smokers.

Study. Posted in Jama Network OpenScientists at the American Cancer Society in Georgia concluded that the risk of death for people who quit smoking before age 35 is similar to people who have never smoked. According to the study, those who quit smoking at a later age still saw significant benefits, but their death rate was higher than for those who quit before age 35.

For example, people aged 35 to 44 who quit smoking had a 21% higher mortality rate from any cause compared to those who had never touched a cigarette. And those who quit smoking between the ages of 45 and 54 had a 47% higher all-cause mortality rate.

But watch out. The study also shows that compared to people who have never smoked, those who smoke now triple the overall death rate. “Assuming the associations in this report are causal, more than 40% of deaths among lifetime smokers and 60% of current smokers can be attributed to tobacco.” Among the main problems to be reduced will be deaths from cancer, cardiovascular or respiratory.

But this does not mean that experts continue to emphasize that, in any case, just because damage can occur at any age does not mean that a young person can smoke without consequences until a certain age. This other study, which analyzed the health of one million women in the UK, says that quitting before age 40 reduces the risk of tobacco-related death by 90%.

We have all the votes. Among other interesting facts that emerged from the study is that white smokers have the highest risk of premature death compared to other races or ethnicities, three times higher than those who have never smoked. For Black and Hispanic smokers, the extreme risk was 2.19 and 2.01 times, respectively. The higher excess mortality rate found in white smokers is probably related to the fact that they start smoking at an earlier age and do it every day.

The benefits of quitting tobacco are seen almost immediately.. With all that said, it’s good news to know that aiming for 35 years can motivate young people struggling to quit smoking. “Without a close target, it’s tempting for smokers to give up trying to quit with cognitions like ‘I don’t really need this right now,'” said the study’s lead author.

In fact, the results of quitting smoking are seen almost immediately. Just 20 minutes after you do this, your heart rate drops. Within 12 hours, the carbon monoxide level in the blood returns to normal. Between 2 and 12 weeks, your circulation improves and lung function improves. After 1 to 9 months, cough and shortness of breath decrease. Within 5 to 15 years, the risk of stroke drops to that of non-smokers. After 10 years, the death rate from lung cancer is half that of smokers. And at 15 years, the risk of heart disease is about that of a non-smoker.

Reasons are not missing…

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