Each cigarette smoked risks shortening the life expectancy of those who light it by an average of 20 minutes. This at least according to an updated estimate by medical researchers at University College London (UCL), a prestigious university in the British capital, attached to a public appeal addressed to smokers, in view of the new year, to encourage them to stop smoking as a resolution for 2025.
The English study on cigarette smoking
In their study, reported among others by the Guardian, the researchers calculate that a single consumed packet can on paper steal 7 hours of life. But they also underline, on a positive note, that – by abandoning the habit from January 1st – anyone who smokes 10 cigarettes a day could reasonably hope to regain one more day of life by the 8th of the same month, a week by February 5th, and a month by August 5th.
The average smoker who doesn’t quit, warned Sarah Jackson, lead researcher of the alcohol and tobacco study group at Ucl, could instead lose “around a decade of life: 10 years of precious moments to share with the people we love”. Smoking has long been indicated by doctors as one of the main causes of “avoidable death” in the world. In the United Kingdom alone it is associated with the premature death of 80,000 people every year and with around a quarter of all cancer diagnoses, even though – specialists admit – there is no shortage of smokers who live a long time.
The UCL research was commissioned by the UK Department of Health, against the backdrop of recent governments’ efforts to strengthen anti-smoking restrictions on the island, particularly among younger people. This survey changes for the worse a previous estimate, the result of a study published in 2000 in the British medical journal (BMJ), which indicated the potential “cost” of each cigarette smoked as 11 minutes of life lost.