As a charity we often focus on research into cancer, and more recently into living with and beyond the disease. But the age old saying ‘prevention is better than cure’ also applies to cancer. So much physical and emotional pain (and expense to our stretched healthcare systems and the economy in general) could be avoided if we didn’t contract the disease in the first place. As we know cancer can be a bit of a lottery – genetic predisposition, living conditions can all contribute, but there are also conscious decisions we can make in order to dodge the cancer bullet.
Our founder John Ellison said “You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.” Actually, you can. You can stop smoking.
It has been established for many years now that smoking is bad for our health, but a Guardian article published this week reports on new research about the impact of cigarettes on life expectancy. Not only does the research, by University College London, say that a single cigarette takes an average of 20 minutes off your life (17 for men, 22 for women), which is double previous findings, it also counters other preconceived ideas.
As they say in American films, ‘You do the math’. A pack of 20 will reduce your life expectancy by 7 hours. So according to the analysis, if a smoker with a 10-a-day habit quits tomorrow, January 1st, they could save losing a day of their life by January 8. If they stay off the cigs until the end of the year, they’ll avoid cutting their life short by 50 days.
Dr Sarah Jackson, a principal research fellow at UCL’s alcohol and tobacco research group says “On average, smokers who don’t quit lose around a decade of life. That’s 10 years of precious time, life moments, and milestones with loved ones.”
A 60-year-old smoker will typically have the health profile of a 70-year-old non-smoker
The article states that “smoking is one of the world’s leading preventable causes of disease and death, killing up to two-thirds of long-term users. It causes about 80,000 deaths a year in the UK” alone.
If you’d like to check the facts, the sources are the British Doctors Study, one of the first large-scale studies into smoking’s effect on health, which began in 1951, and the Million Women Study, which has been tracking women’s health since 1996.
Spoiler alert: Smoking doesn’t cut short the unhealthy period at the end of life
“Some people might think they don’t mind missing out on a few years of life, given that old age is often marked by chronic illness or disability. But smoking doesn’t cut short the unhealthy period at the end of life,” says Dr. Jackson. “It primarily eats into the relatively healthy years in midlife, bringing forward the onset of ill-health.”
“Just the one”? It has been proven that there is no safe level of smoking: in fact, the risk of heart disease and stroke is only about 50% lower for people who smoke one cigarette a day compared with those with a daily habit of 20. “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,” say the researchers.
As Professor Sanjay Agrawal, a special adviser on tobacco at the Royal College of Physicians, said: “Every cigarette smoked costs precious minutes of life, and the cumulative impact is devastating, not only for individuals but also for our healthcare system and economy. This research is a powerful reminder of the urgent need to address cigarette smoking as the leading preventable cause of death and disease in the UK.”
Not just in the UK, of course. So, if you’re looking for a New Year’s resolution… enough said?
Advice, support and resources are available on the UK NHS Quit Smoking app and its online Personal Quit Plan, which tailors advice to personal preferences.
Photo Reza Mehrad via Unsplash
