Smoking makes daily life tougher in old age

Smoking not only shortens a person's life, but may also make daily life harder to manage in old age, a study published Monday suggests.

The study, which followed more than 1,600 Finnish men for 26 years, found that those who smoked in middle age died sooner, on average, and had a poorer health-related quality of life in their later years.

In particular, men who had smoked heavily in middle age had more problems with their physical functioning by old age -- including difficulties with daily activities like walking short distances, climbing stairs, carrying groceries and bathing.

Most smokers are well aware that the habit may shorten their lives, lead researcher Dr Arto Strandberg said.

"What they may not realise, and what is so clearly evident in this study, is that the effect of smoking is there in their lives every day," said Dr Strandberg, of the University of Helsinki in Finland.

The findings, reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine, are based on 1,658 men who were healthy and between the ages of 40 and 55 at the study's start. At that time, 37 per cent said they had never smoked, while 39 per cent were former smokers and the rest were current smokers.

Over the next 26 years, the majority of smokers eventually quit.

Still, Dr Strandberg's team found, men who had smoked in middle age tended to die earlier; those who had smoked heavily in middle age -- 20 or more cigarettes per day -- died an average of 10 years sooner than men who had never smoked.

Smokers also tended to have more problems with their physical functioning as they grew older. What's more, men who had quit smoking after the study's start did not catch up with never-smokers in terms of physical functioning.

That's not good news for people who quit smoking after middle age, Dr Strandberg noted. However, he stressed, quitting is known to lower the risks of smoking-related diseases and premature death.

So even though quitting smoking may not fully reverse all of the habit's negative health effects, Dr Strandberg said, it is "always beneficial."

The earlier in life a smoker can quit, the better, Dr Strandberg pointed out, adding that the best choice, of course, is to never take up the habit.

Reuters Health

Source: Archives of Internal Medicine, October 13, 2008.