Can Stop Smoking Really Save Life?

Smoking is bad for the health. It is a risk factor for many diseases including lung and other cancers, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), stroke, sexual problems, ageing and many more.

Cardiovascular disease is a general term for disease involving narrowed or blocked blood vessels that can lead to heart attack, chest pain (angina) or stroke. It is often used interchangeably with heart disease.

A study appeared in the May 7, 2008 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) revealed that women who stop smoking greatly cut their risk of early death and cardiovascular disease just 5 years after they quit. Researchers from Harvard School of Public Health, Boston also reported that the risk of death from smoking-linked cancers was also reduced by about 20 percent over the same period.

In order to examine the relationship between cigarette smoking and stopping smoking on the total and cause-specific mortality in women, the researchers reviewed the data from the Nurses' Health Study of 104,519 female participants during the period between 1980 and 2004.

Among a total of 12, 483 deaths found, 4,485 (35.9 percent) were never smoked, 3,602 (28.9 percent) were current smokers, and 4,396 (35.2 percent) were those smoked in the past but quit.

It was found that a 13 percent reduction of all causes of mortality within the first 5 years of quitting smoking, compared with women who continued smoking. Meanwhile, the study also discovered that 20 years after quitting, the excess risk fell to the level of a person who never smoked, and people who started smoking at early age faced an increased mortality risk.

According to the researchers, a good public health program should be able to effectively communicate risks to smokers and help them quit successfully. As such, they recommended preventive strategies that involve implementing and maintaining school tobacco prevention program, in addition to enforcing youth access laws.