X-Message-Number: 30867
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:29:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: 
Subject: smoking - it's never too late to quit

[Smoking increases mortality even in centenarians.]

Recenti Prog Med. 2004 Apr;95(4):187-9.
[Smoking and survival in centenarians]
[Article in Italian]
    Cicconetti P, Tafaro L, Tedeschi G, Tombolillo MT, Ursino R, Marigliano
V. Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Invecchiamento, Universita La Sapienza,
Roma.
    Cigarette smoking has been clearly linked to the most common causes of
death in the elderly and contributes to the higher death rate and disability
rate associated with many chronic illnesses that are common in this age
group. The combination of smoking along with other risk factors like
hypertension and diabetes increase high frequency disease, and disability as
well as adding to an increase in mortality rate. In order to verify if a
healthy lifestyle really favours longevity and how much smoking is
incompatible with extreme longevity, we investigated the prevalence of
smokers and the total smoking exposure of a sample of centenarians as
regards residual survival and health conditions. Our sample consists of 157
centenarians selected among the registered residents of Rome: 39 males and
118 females (ratio = 1:3), mean age being 101.59 years (sd = 1.8). 83.8% of
the centenarians have never smoked, 13.5% are former smokers, and 2.7% are
active smokers. The average starting age of smoking was 21.2 years while the
average age of quitting in former smokers was 65.7 years with an average of
44.7 smoking years (sd = 17.1). The average number of smoked cigarettes per
day is quite low, less than 10 cigarettes. There seemed to be a significant
difference (p < 0.001) in gender results in smokers: male centenarians were
46%, while female reached only 8.1%. Statistically significant higher
prevalence of diseases illnesses were noted among centenarian smokers over
the age of 65 (p < 0.02). Moreover Cox's regression has shown in
centenarians a lower survival rate (p < 0.05) in smokers than in
non-smokers. In conclusion, our study is evidence that smoking is for all,
but some exceptional subjects, incompatible with successful aging and
compromises life expectancy even in extreme longevity.
PMID: 15147062

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=30867