Smoking and Life Expectancy

Smoking Takes 10 Years Off Life Expectancy in Japan, Not 4 as Previously Thought, Experts Warn

ScienceDaily (Oct. 26, 2012) — Smoking reduces life expectancy by ten years in Japan, but much of the risk can be avoided by giving up smoking, a paper published on bmj.com shows.

---

Previous studies in Japan suggested smoking reduced life expectancy by only a few years compared with about ten years in Britain and the USA. This new report, from researchers in Oxford and Japan, investigates the impact of smoking on mortality in a large group of Japanese people who were living in Hiroshima or Nagasaki in 1950. The findings are, however, nothing to do with radiation exposure from the bombs.

The Life Span Study (LSS) was initiated in 1950 to investigate the effects of radiation, tracking over 100,000 people. However, most received minimal radiation exposure, and can therefore provide useful information about other risk factors. Surveys carried out later obtained smoking information for 68,000 men and women, who have now been followed for an average of 23 years to relate smoking habits to survival./.../