Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Smoking, Mortality, Reversal

Time to quit cigarettes is now. The craving may last a year or two but the damages sustained from smoking may take 20 years to reverse completely. According to a study from Harvard and Washington University School of Medicine, the excess risk of death in female smokers who have quit cigarettes decreases rapidly for vascular causes and in 20 years for lung disease.

This study assessed the relationship between cigarette smoking and smoking cessation on total and cause-specific mortality in women. More than 100,000 women were evaluated from 1980 to 2004. In this cohort, there were 12 483 deaths, of which 4485 (36%) were among never smokers, 3602 (29%) were among current smokers, and 4396 (35%) were among past smokers. Causes of mortality were categorized into vascular and respiratory diseases, lung cancer, other cancers, and other causes.

Compared with never smokers, current smokers had an increased risk of total mortality and all major cause-specific mortality. Approximately 64% of deaths among current smokers and 28% of deaths among former smokers were attributable to cigarette smoking. In addition there was a significant association between an earlier age of initiating smoking and all smoking-related cancer deaths. A trend was seen between smoking and colorectal cancer but not with ovarian cancer mortality.

A similar study is being done in a population of men. However, chances are that the results will not be very different from the findings in this study. If you are smoking now, stop. The body will start reversing the damages rapidly but it may take 20 years to reach the level of a person who has never smoked.

Resources to stop smoking.

References: JAMA. 2008;299(17):2037-2047.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Dr Taraneh Razavi
My Name And Family is Mahmood Sepehri.
My City Is Tehran.My Country Is Iran.
Im a amedical student from Tehran, I really enjoyed your blog.i want to ask you a question but unfortunately i couldn't find your e-mail address?
your e-mail address?
What is your e-mail address?
your Can Write Farsi (Persian)?
Pls send your e-mail address To My E-mail Address.
Pls Write Farsi (Persian) On Your Blog.
Tank You.
Good By.
msepehri2005@gmail.com
mahmoodsepehri@gmail.com
http://www.mscomputer.tk
سلام خانم دكتر ترانه رضوي
اميد وارم كه بتوانيد اين مطلب فارسي را بخوانيد. البته من مطالبم را به صورت پينگليش نيز مي نويسم. واينگليسي مي نويسم.
كشور من ايران است و شهر من تهران است.
من دانشجوي كامپيوتر در استان تهران هستم.
خيلي خوشحال هستم از اينكه اعضاي ايراني كه در شركت گوگل هستند نيز وب لاگ نويسي را براي ارتباط با ساير افراد انتخاب كردند.
من خيلي خوشحال هستم از اينكه يك فرد ايراني اين وظيفه را در شركت گوگل دارد چرا كه اينجانب ايده هاي را براي شركت گوگل در زمينه پزشكي داشتم.
من داراي رتبه اول اختراع در جشن واره دانشجويان ممتاز مبتكر و نو آور در استان تهران هستم.
اينجانب براي شما در زمينه پزشكي با كامپيوتر و براي شركت گوگل پيشنهادي داشتم كه ميتواند هم موقعيت شما را در گوگل تغيير دهد و باعث بهتر شدن موقعيت شما در گوگل مي شود و هم اينكه پيشنهاداتي نيز براي شركت گوگل داردم كه موقيت گوگل را در جهان بهتر خواهد كرد .
اينجانب نيز داراي اختراعاتي در زمينه هاي گوناگوني هستم كه شركت گوگل در صورتي كه آنها را در سيستم خود اجرا كند باعث تحول خواهد شد.
براي ارتباط با اينجانب مي تونيد از ايميل من استفاده كنيد .
لطفا نامه هاي خود را به صورت پنگليش و يا فارسي بنويسيد.
msepehri2005@gmail.com
mahmoodsepehri@gmail.com
http://www.mscomputer.tk

Chano Santamaria said...

Read your post in regards to coffee. Its curious that studies are began with the intention of proving that coffee is bad for us. Almost as if to put the conlcusion before what the evidence indicates. Cool blog. Some things I have noticed about days when I do drink too much coffee though is dry skin. How exactly does caffeine dehydrate?

Dr. Taraneh Razavi said...

Hi Chano

Caffeine in large doses acts as a diuretic so you lose more water through increased urine output. It used to be thought that all coffee intake does that, but more recent research shows that the effect occurs only when you consume large amounts or when you have just started to drink caffeine (the body adapts after a week to small amounts).

Thanks for reading the blog. Good luck with getting to the song (mentioned in your profile). I noticed that we share a few favorite music groups.

Good luck.

Anonymous said...

با سلام
خانم رضوی از اینکه میتونم صدای خودم را به شما برسانم،خیلی خوشحالم.تو ایران خیلی ها هستند که همانند شما دارای ابتکار زیادی هستد.ولی هیچ وقت مورد حمایت قرار نمیگیرند.آن هم به یک دلیل خیلی ساده،بسیجی نیستند.من در مورد امنیت شبکه فعالیت دارم.طرح هایی را به مسئولان برای بالا بردن امنیت پیشنهاد دادم ولی همیشه جواب رد به سینه ی من میخورد.از شما به عنوان یک هموطن کمک میخوام.لطفا مراراهنمایی کنید تا بتوانم با موفقیتم جواب کوبنده ای به این آقا زاده ها بدهم..
ایمیل من pooria_mrr@yahoo.com
امیدوارم لااقل شما به من اهمیت بدهید.منتظر شما هستم.

Steinkamp said...

Hello Dr. Razavi -

I am an account manager with Pizer. We have a variety of (non-product) employer based wellness tools that may be of interest to you in your role at Google. These tools are of no cost and quite frankly under utilized. They are related to a variety of topics (diet and excercise - diabetes - cardiovascular health) including smoking cessation. Please let me know if we might be able to discuss these tools at your leisure. Thanks -

Greg Steinkamp
gregory.g.steinkamp@pfizer.com

Anonymous said...

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