Here’s a new perspective to motivate yourself (or someone else) to give up smoking: every cigarette smoked can take 20 minutes off your life expectancy, according to experts. Quit for a week, and your life could be a whole day longer.
The new metrics have been estimated by researchers from University College London (UCL), and are based on recent data added on top of a 2000 study that estimated each cigarette smoked equated to 11 minutes of lost life.
We now have more statistics for mortality rates across a greater number of smokers, which means a more accurate estimate for predicting their life expectancy.
The researchers were keen to update the calculation to motivate people to give up the smoking habit, which dramatically increases the risk of developing lung cancer, brain damage, and a host of other harms.
“Conveying these harms in a clear and accessible way that resonates with smokers can be challenging,” write the researchers in their published paper.
“One potentially impactful way to express the harm caused by smoking is to estimate the average loss of life expectancy for each cigarette smoked.”
Of course, 20-minute increments are a generalization based on a simplified measure of each person’s habit. Everything from how deeply smokers inhale with each puff, to the other medical conditions they have, can make a difference to life expectancy.
However, 20 minutes is a useful shorthand for imagining the impact every cigarette has on the body, emphasizing the fact that benefits of being smoke-free increase over time.
“Epidemiological data indicate that the harm caused by smoking is cumulative and the sooner the person stops, and the more cigarettes they avoid smoking, the longer they live,” write the researchers.
“Thus, a person smoking 10 cigarettes per day who quits smoking on the 1st of January 2025 could prevent loss of a full day of life by the 8th of January, a week of life by the 20th of February, and a month by the 5th of August. By the end of the year, they could have avoided losing 50 days of life.”
In the UK, where the study data was sourced, being a smoker equates to an average reduction in lifespan of 10 years for men, and 11 for women. Smoking is the number one preventable cause of death, disability, and ill health in the country (as it is in the US).
And the researchers emphasize that it’s not enough to cut down on how much you smoke; stopping completely is the only option if you want to eliminate the added risks of disease. No matter how old you are or how long you’ve smoked for, you can see benefits by finding a way to quit.
“Stopping smoking at every age is beneficial but the sooner smokers get off this escalator of death the longer and healthier they can expect their lives to be,” write the researchers.
The research has been published in Addiction.
