The New York Times
May 7, 2008

Quick Benefit to Smoking Halt, With a Caveat, Study Finds

CHICAGO (Reuters) — Women who stop smoking can enjoy major health benefits within five years, but it can take decades to correct respiratory damage and shed the added risk of lung cancer, researchers reported on Tuesday.

Those who stopped had a 13 percent reduction in the risk of death from all causes, including heart and vascular problems, within the first five years, the study found. After 20 years, the risk of death from any cause was the same for those who quit as for those who had never smoked.

For deaths due specifically to respiratory diseases, there was an 18 percent reduction within 5 to 10 years of quitting, reaching the level found in nonsmokers after 20 years.

But while there was a 21 percent reduction in the risk of lung cancer death within five years, it took 30 years for that excess risk to disappear.

The findings are the latest to emerge from a study of more than 121,000 American women in the nursing profession whose health histories were recorded in 1976 and followed during the ensuing years. While the study involved only women, other research has found benefits for men who stop smoking.

“Our findings indicate that 64 percent of deaths in current smokers and 28 percent of deaths in past smokers are attributable to smoking,” Stacey A. Kenfield of the Harvard School of Public Health and colleagues wrote in the report, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

“Quitting reduces the excess mortality rates for all major causes of death examined,” they added.

The report also found that women who started smoking later in life had a lower risk of many lung and heart diseases. The researchers said this was troubling, given recent studies showing that people are taking up cigarettes at early ages.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/u...lth&oref=slogin

As someone who is now in their 6th year as a non-smoker, I can definitely attest to this

A good-motivating read.