Smoking Reduces 20-25 Years of One’s Life

According to Dr. Rory Collins of Oxford University, smoking can reduce 20-25 years of one’s life.

- K.K.Bajaj

Speaking on the role of Tobacco and Diabetes in causing cardiovascular disease, at the 54th Conference of the Cardiological Society of India (CSI) in Kochi recently, Dr. Collins said, “Non-smokers have got greater life expectancy than those who smoke.” Tobacco has been shown to cause about 25 life-threatening diseases including cancer, heart diseases, high blood - pressure, diabetes, impaired vision, nervousness, arthritis, etc. Many of these can be prevented, through cessation of smoking.However, nothing keeps them away from being insured. Being overweight or a chain-smoker and a heavy drinker certainly puts them in a high-risk category as far as life insurance or health insurance is concerned. But, that does not mean one cannot get a life or a health cover.

Radioactivity in each cigarette can reduce one’s life by 11 minutes

Shaw Mitchell and Dorling from the University of Bristol showed that a cigarette reduces one’s life by 11 minutes (British Medical Journal, January 1, 2000). Dr. Dorling asserted “Cigarette smoke contains radioactive perfumes.” In the New England Journal of Medicine, T.H. Winters and J.R. DiFranza, University of Massachusetts Medical Centre wrote that cigarettes contain radioactivity in the form of Polonium 210 (Po-210) and Lead (Pb-210). T.C.Tso, a former researcher at the US Department of Agriculture, discovered that the radioactivity in tobacco came from Phosphatic fertilizers, which contained Uranium and its decay product Radium-226. Scientists found high concentrations of Po-210 in the lungs of 7 out of the 37 smokers in the study. Lung cancers also seem to have developed.