Mid-Life Smokers Have Poorer Quality of Life

Shorter life of downgraded quality awaits heavy smokers

TUESDAY, Oct. 14 (HealthDay News) -- Quality of life in old age is adversely affected by smoking in mid-life in a dose-dependent manner, according to the results of a study published in the Oct. 13 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Arto Y. Strandberg, M.D., of the University of Helsinki in Finland, and colleagues conducted a study of 1,658 white males born between 1919 and 1934 who were healthy at baseline in 1974, and who were followed-up 26 years later using a mailed health-related quality-of-life questionnaire.

The 614 subjects who had never smoked lived a mean 10 years longer than the 188 subjects who smoked more than 20 cigarettes a day, and of the 1,131 subjects who survived to 2000, never-smokers had the best scores in the health-related quality-of-life survey scale, the researchers found. There was a graded deterioration in health-related quality-of-life dependent on the number of cigarettes smoked each day, the report indicates.

"Compared with heavy smokers, never-smokers had a mean life expectancy that was 10 years longer. They also enjoyed significantly better physical health status in late life, which was equal to an age difference of 10 years in the general population," the authors write. "From a prevention point of view, our findings…add to the view of the burden of smoking on society, and might at an individual level encourage smoking cessation."

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