Quit for a week and save full day of life, smokers are told

Women lose 22 minutes of their life with each cigarette they smoke while one cigarette shortens a man's life by 17 minutes, experts have estimated.

- MAYA OPPENHEIM

New predictions by researchers are higher than previous estimates which suggested that each cigarette shortens a smoker’s life by 11 minutes.

The latest findings, which claim that each cigarette leads to a 20minute loss of life on average across both genders, are based on more up-to-date figures from long-term studies tracking the health of the population.

Researchers from University College London said that the harm caused by smoking is “cumulative” and the sooner a person stops smoking, and the more cigarettes they avoid smoking, the longer they live. The new research, commissioned by the Department for Health and Social Care, suggests that if a 10cigarettes-a-day smoker quits on 1 January, then by 8 January they could “prevent loss of a full day of life”.