/sci/ - Science & Math

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/tc.2005.011932

Interesting table I saw from this study on light smokers. Essentially, smoking can kill you in two ways:

1. Ischemic heart disease
2. Lung cancer

It turns out that smoking 1-4 cigarettes a day increases the risk of the former, but risk of the latter is more exponential in # of cigarettes smoked (and in fact, the study didn't even find a statistically significant increase in risk).

We also know from previous research that unlike damage to the lungs, the risk of heart disease from smoking actually declines over time after one stops smoking and returns to near baseline after 10-15 years.

So essentially, if you are a light smoker and you quit while you're still in your 20s or 30s (i.e., more than 15 years before heart disease becomes a real concern), it doesn't really affect your life expectancy. Of course, easier said than done... most light smokers in the study started smoking more over time