Scientists say one cigarette can take anywhere from 11-14 minutes off your life. Now think about lighting up right after having a heart attack, when your body is at its weakest.
A new study shows people who stop smoking after having a heart attack live longer than people who keep up the dirty habit.
Over 1,500 people were studied for 13 years after surviving a heart attack. Israeli researchers found that compared with first-time heart attack sufferers who continued to smoke, those who quit were 37 percent less likely to die during the study.
People who have never smoked in their life were 43 percent less likely to die than persistent smokers.
The study included 1,521 adults age 65 and older who were treated at one of eight Israeli hospitals for a first-time heart attack in 1992 or 1993. At the time, 27 percent had never smoked, 20 percent were former smokers, and more than half were current smokers. After hospital discharge, a majority of smokers tried to quit; 35 percent managed to remain continuously abstinent over the next 10 to 13 years.
During the 13-year period, 427 people died. The risk was greatest among those who had continued to smoke, even with factors like obesity, exercise habits, education and income, and overall health taken into account.
A survival advantage was found for people who instead of completely quitting, managed to cut down on the amount of cigarettes they smoked.
Of the 381 patients who continued to smoke, the risk of dying during the study period declined by 11 percent for every five daily cigarettes they cut out.
These findings are published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Smoking-cessation counseling has been suggested to lower further complications for people who have suffered a heart attack and have not quit smoking.
Dr. Yariv Gerber, from Tel Aviv University, told Reuters, “Smokers who have had a heart attack should be provided with appropriate interventions to help them quit.”
Researchers note that the benefits of quitting, either before or after a heart attack, are at least as great as those of other common therapies to prevent further heart problems — including cholesterol lowering, and use of aspirin and beta-blocker medications, which lower the risk of death by anywhere from 15 percent to 29 percent.
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