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People who give up smoking begin to improve their health almost immediately, according to a study of more than 100,000 women carried out between 1980 and 2004. Within five years the risk of death from all causes fell by 13%, it found. By 20 years, people had no extra risk of death because of their past smoking history.
The study, by researchers at Harvard medical school in Boston, also highlights the benefits of not starting smoking until later; women who began at 17 were 22% more likely to die within the study period than those who started at 26 or older. The news will encourage the third of smokers in the UK who would like to give up the habit. A survey by the Office for National Statistics released in January found 22% of Britons are smokers, down from 27% at the end of the 1990s and the lowest level since records began.
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The risk of dying from smoking-related causes drops significantly within just a few years of giving up cigarettes, even for longtime smokers, new research shows.
Within five years of quitting smoking, study participants experienced a 13% reduction in the risk of death from all causes, a 47% risk reduction in heart disease-related deaths, and a 27% reduction in the risk of death from stroke.
Within 20 years of quitting, the risk of dying among former smokers was similar to that of lifetime nonsmokers for most causes of death, with the exception of lung cancer.
The findings suggest that it is never too late to derive health benefits from giving up smoking, says researcher Stacey A. Kenfield, ScD, of the Harvard School of Public Health.
The study appears in the May 7 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Smoking is associated with an increased risk of total and cause-specific death, but the rate of mortality risk reduction after quitting compared with continuing to smoke is uncertain. . . .
Prospective observational study of 104 519 female participants in the Nurses' Health Study with follow-up from 1980 to 2004. . . .
Conclusions
Most of the excess risk of vascular mortality due to smoking in women may be eliminated rapidly upon cessation and within 20 years for lung diseases. Postponing the age of smoking initiation reduces the risk of respiratory disease, lung cancer, and other smoking-related cancer deaths but has little effect on other cause-specific mortality. These data suggest that smoking is associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer mortality but not ovarian cancer mortality.
Researchers at the University of Sheffield have developed innovative technology which illuminates a person's lungs and helps clinicians identify if they are functioning correctly. The new technology could result in earlier diagnosis of emphysema and smoking related damage, as well as other lung conditions and diseases.
Lung diseases are of growing concern to the health of the nation, with people suffering from conditions as mild as asthma or as severe as lung cancer. By detecting lung damage early, doctors could help slow down or stop the conditions.
Researchers at the University of Sheffield have developed innovative technology which illuminates a person´s lungs and helps clinicians identify if they are functioning correctly. The new technology could result in earlier diagnosis of emphysema and smoking related damage, as well as other lung conditions and diseases.
The technique developed at Sheffield involves a person inhaling small amounts of harmless hyperpolarised (HP) noble gases (Helium-3 and Xenon-129), which are then imaged inside an MRI scanner.
Dry airways may not only play a central role in the development of the inherited lung disease cystic fibrosis, but also in much more common acquired chronic lung diseases such as asthma and smoker's lung, the cigarette smoke-induced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This is the conclusion reached by scientists at Heidelberg University Hospital under the direction of Assistant Professor Dr. Marcus Mall from the Department of Pediatrics at Heidelberg University Hospital and Professor Dr. Richard Boucher of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In animal studies, they found that insufficient hydration of the airway surfaces leads to pathologies typical of chronic obstructive lung diseases in humans.
Thus, these findings point to a new approach for the treatment of these diseases, which are listed by the World Health Organization WHO as the fourth leading cause of death world-wide. There are currently no causal therapies available for treating these diseases; only the symptoms such as shortness of breath and oxygen deficiency can be treated. The results of the study have now been published in the "American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine".
Cystic fibrosis gene causes airways to dry out and thickens mucus
Smokers with lung disease require more than brief smoking cessation interventions to successfully quit, researchers in the Oregon Health & Science University Smoking Cessation Center report.
Although effective treatments for smoking cessation exist, and research has shown that patients who receive smoking cessation treatment are twice as likely to quit -- limited insurance coverage, poor adherence to practice guidelines, lack of clinician training in smoking cessation, time constraints and inadequate clinic systems to easily identify and treat smokers have limited the availability and quality of smoking cessation treatment.
Dry airways may not only play a central role in the development of the inherited lung disease cystic fibrosis, but also in much more common acquired chronic lung diseases such as asthma and smoker’s lung, the cigarette smoke-induced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This is the conclusion reached by scientists at Heidelberg University Hospital under the direction of Assistant Professor Dr. Marcus Mall from the Department of Pediatrics at Heidelberg University Hospital and Professor Dr. Richard Boucher of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In animal studies, they found that insufficient hydration of the airway surfaces leads to pathologies typical of chronic obstructive lung diseases in humans.
Thus, these findings point to a new approach for the treatment of these diseases
US researchers report that exposure to cigarette smoke inhibits innate gene expression and impairs alveolar growth in neonatal mice.
Sharon McGrath-Morrow from John Hopkin Medical Institute wrote in the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology that their findings may in part explain the increased incidence of respiratory symptoms in infants and children exposed to cigarette smoke.
Infants exposed to cigarette smoke are at higher risk for sudden infant death syndrome, lower respiratory tract infections, and small airway disease, compared with infants not exposed to cigarette smoke, suggesting that perinatal life represents a period of vulnerability during which exposure to cigarette smoke may impair lung immunity and lung growth.
To investigate the effects of cigarette smoke exposure on the neonatal lung, the researchers exposed neonatal mice to cigarette smoke for the first 2 weeks of life.
People in the UAE and other Middle Eastern countries are developing lung disease at a younger age and the trend is set to worsen, researchers warned.
The 46-country Greatest International Antibiotic Trial (Giant) studied the prevalence of acute exacerbate chronic bronchitis (AECB), a form of lung disease, and the effectiveness of Bayer Schering Pharma's antibiotic in treating it.
It found a majority of the 4,300 subjects in the Middle East were reporting the disease at 48.5 years old, the youngest compared to other regions.
The average age for lung disease in Latin America was 63.1 years, followed by Europe at 60.5 and Asia-Pacific with 57.1 years. . . .
He warned the outlook in the Middle East was grim: "What is happening here is what has happened in the US and Europe 20 years ago. There are more women smokers [and] it's going to get worse if nothing changes."
Their recommendations were published Tuesday, April 1, in the online edition of Pulmonary and Critical Care Update, a publication of the American College of Physicians.
Although effective treatments for smoking cessation exist, and research has shown that patients who receive smoking cessation treatment are twice as likely to quit -- limited insurance coverage, poor adherence to practice guidelines, lack of clinician training in smoking cessation, time constraints and inadequate clinic systems to easily identify and treat smokers have limited the availability and quality of smoking cessation treatment. . . .
David Gonzales, Ph.D., lead author and co-director of the OHSU Smoking Cessation Center in the OHSU School of Medicine. "When we reviewed the data, we found that brief intervention is often insufficient for the more dependent, high-risk patients with pulmonary disease."
Patients with respiratory disease have more difficulty quitting, are more nicotine-dependent and need more intensive treatment, Gonzales and colleagues explained. They may require higher doses of medications, longer periods of treatment and more frequent follow-up than smokers in general. And, although most try to quit on their own without assistance from their health care provider, 95 percent fail, and patients with respiratory disease have even poorer success.
Researchers at Suburban Lung Associates and the Chicago Chest Center recently announced the start of the EASE (Exhale Airway Stents for Emphysema) Trial to explore an investigational treatment for advanced widespread emphysema. The trial focuses on airway bypass, a minimally invasive bronchoscopic procedure designed to help patients with emphysema/COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) breathe more easily.
Following the World Health Organisations, warning that tuberculosis killed 1.7 million people in India and China in 2006, anti-tobacco campaigners claim that smoking was the main factor causing the spread of TB and death from the disease.
Dr. P C Gupta of Healis Sekhsaria Institute for Public Health, said, "Smokers have an increased risk of contracting TB and suffer much worse symptoms. In India smoking is responsible for the spread of TB and kills more people than lung cancer."
Dr Gupta added, "When researchers looked at the effect of smoking, the findings revealed that 40 percent of TB deaths were among men and it happened because of smoking."
The New South Wales government has abandoned shock tactics in its latest anti-smoking campaign in favour of a subtle warning about the effects of emphysema.
A pulmonary disease brought on by long-term exposure tobacco smoke, emphysema is the fifth largest killer amongst men in Australia, with tens of thousands of suffers admitted to hospital with the disease each year.
Diabetes, the leading cause of heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney failure and non-traumatic amputations, can also cause the lungs to deteriorate quicker than they normally do with age, a new study shows.
Although everyone experiences a decline in lung function as they grow older, research published in the April issue of Diabetes Care concluded that the lungs of people with type 2 diabetes deteriorate more quickly than normal.