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A new study shatters the long-held belief that less smoking means less harm.
Scientists now believe that the body low level smoking.
Researchers at the American Heart Association’s Tobacco Control and Addiction Center analyzed data from 22 long-term health studies involving more than 320,000 adults.
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The study results, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, show that smoking just a few cigarettes a day sharply increases the risk of: heart disease and early death, and the only way to reverse those risks is to stop smoking completely.
According to a press release, the study divided adults into non-smokers, current smokers, and former smokers.
A large, long-term study found that even minimal smoking can double your risk of heart disease and death. (St. Petersburg)
Researchers looked at how much people smoked, measuring their “pack years” and number of cigarettes per day. For former smokers, we looked at how long it had been since they stopped smoking.
The team then compared those patterns to multiple patterns health outcomesheart attack, stroke, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and overall mortality.
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Current smokers had more than twice as much risk of dying For whatever reason, compared to someone who doesn’t smoke at all.
People who smoked only two to five cigarettes a day were twice as likely to develop heart disease.
Smoking just two to five cigarettes a day more than doubles your risk of all types of heart disease and increases your risk of death from any cause by 60% compared to someone who never smokes. (St. Petersburg)
“Smoking just two to five cigarettes a day can more than double the risk of all types of heart disease and increase the risk of death from any cause by 60% compared to someone who never smokes,” the association said in a statement.
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The study also found that health risks There is an “immediate decline” when someone stops smoking, and it continues to decline significantly over time.
Former smokers showed significant improvement within 10 years and were more than 80% less at risk than current smokers after about 20 years, but it takes a long time for the damage to completely disappear.
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According to the AHA, “While quitting smoking significantly reduces smoking-related health risks during the first 10 years, it can take more than 30 years for a former smoker’s health risks to equal those of a nonsmoker.”
The researchers noted that the study did not examine the effects of e-cigarettes. (St. Petersburg)
Researchers say the takeaway from this study is that the only safe level of smoking is not smoking at all.
“Low-intensity smoking is cardiovascular risk“And the main public health message for current smokers is not to smoke less, but to quit sooner rather than later,” they write.
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The authors noted some limitations, namely that smoking habits were self-reported at the beginning of each study.
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“Stigma against smoking may lead to under-reporting of current smoking status, particularly among women, and may impact data accuracy,” the study said.
The researchers also did not include data on: Electronic cigarettes or other tobacco products.
