Smoking kills more than 440,000 people every year in the United States. This makes it the number one preventable cause of death. People who smoke and are 65 or older die three times more often than those who never smoked.
This piece wants to get into question “how does smoking affect life expectancy?“. We’ll learn how different things shape life expectancy and what happens in our body after we stop smoking. We’ll also understand the lasting health effects that come with this habit.
What impact does smoking have on how long we live?
Smoking significantly reduces life expectancy by increasing the risk of serious diseases such as heart disease, stroke, chronic lung conditions and various cancers. On average, smokers die about 10 years earlier than non-smokers, with the risk rising the longer and more frequently a person smokes.
Smoking also accelerates biological aging by increasing inflammation and oxidative stress, weakening the immune system and damaging blood vessels. However, quitting smoking at any age can dramatically improve health outcomes and extend lifespan, with benefits starting within days and increasing over time.
The connection between smoking and reduced lifespan
Smoking doesn’t just harm our health, it cuts our life short. Research shows a clear gap in how long smokers live compared to non-smokers.
Average life expectancy of smokers vs non-smokers
Smokers die at 2-3 times the rate of people who never smoked, according to studies. This means shorter lives. Men who smoked their whole lives died about 10 years earlier than those who never touched cigarettes.
People born in the early 1900s (1900-1909) who smoked had double the death rate of non-smokers. Studies show they had a 42% chance of dying in middle age (35-69 years) compared to 24% for non-smokers. The numbers got worse for those born in the 1920s. Smokers then had triple the death rate, with a 43% chance of dying in middle age compared to just 15% for non-smokers.
How many years does smoking take off our life
The years lost to smoking depend on how much we smoke. Studies show that regular smoking cuts life by 6.8 years, while heavy smoking takes away 8.8 years.
Even occasional smoking is dangerous. People who smoked now and then lost about five years of life compared to never-smokers. Daily smokers lost even more, a full decade off their lives.
Each cigarette a man smokes steals 11 minutes of his life. A single carton costs us about a day and a half. Smoking a pack every day for a year shortens our life by almost 2 months.
Impact of secondhand smoke on mortality
Smoke hurts more than just the smoker. Secondhand smoke exposure causes nearly 53,800 deaths annually in the U.S, according to studies.
Our risk of death goes up by a lot if we breathe secondhand smoke:
- Non-smokers risk of heart disease jumps 25-30%;
- Stroke risk increases 20-30%;
- Lung cancer risk rises 20-30%.
Just a brief exposure can hurt us right away. Within an hour, it damages our body and these effects last at least three hours. It harms blood vessel walls and makes blood platelets stickier, which raises our heart attack risk.
The message is clear, tobacco smoke cuts lives short, whether we’re smoking or just breathing someone else’s smoke.
Diseases that drive smoking-related deaths
The grim death rates from smoking tell only part of the story. Let’s learn about how tobacco damages the human body and why it cuts lives short.
Lung cancer and other cancers
Cigarettes are the biggest cause of lung cancer in the United States. Studies show they’re linked to 80-90% of lung cancer deaths. Lung cancer kills more people than any other cancer in the United States and worldwide, with over a million deaths each year.
Cancer risk from smoking doesn’t stop at the lungs. Smoking causes cancer throughout the body, including:
- Mouth and throat;
- Esophagus and stomach;
- Colon, rectum and liver;
- Pancreas and voicebox (larynx);
- Kidney, bladder and cervix;
- Acute myeloid leukemia.
Lung cancer’s toll is devastating. Only 15% of patients survive beyond five years. This cancer kills more people than prostate, colon, pancreas and breast cancers combined. Men’s lung cancer deaths make up 31% of all cancer deaths, while womens account for 26%, according to research.
Cardiovascular disease and stroke
Smoking drives heart disease deaths, causing one in four cardiovascular disease deaths. Studies show smokers face 2 to 4 times higher risk of coronary heart disease and stroke than non-smokers. Even smoking fewer than five cigarettes daily can damage our heart.
Smoking hurts our heart and blood vessels in several ways. The chemicals we inhale cause plaque buildup in arteries (atherosclerosis). They also damage the inner lining of blood vessels, the first step toward heart disease.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
COPD ranks as the world’s third deadliest disease, killing over 3 million people yearly. Smoking remains the main risk factor for this progressive lung condition.
The more we smoke, the higher our COPD risk becomes. Studies show current smokers show 15.2% COPD rates, former smokers 7.6% and people who never smoked only 2.8%.
Beyond killing people, COPD causes lasting disability and raises risks for lung cancer, heart diseases and type 2 diabetes.
Other causes: diabetes, infections and immune decline
Smoking’s damage goes beyond lungs and heart. It weakens r metabolism and immune system. Among diabetics, smoking kills 14.6% of men and 3.3% of women worldwide, according to research.
Smoking changes our immune system right away and over time. Smokers’ bodies overreact to bacteria, but this improves quickly after quitting. Changes to T cells last years after stopping.
A weaker immune system means more infections. Smokers catch colds twice as often as non-smokers. Vaccines for flu and COVID-19 don’t work as well in smokers.
Smoking also triggers body wide inflammation and autoimmune problems like rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and lupus . Our basic immune response bounces back quickly when we quit, but our adaptive immunity needs years to heal and some damage might last forever.
How smoking accelerates aging and reduces healthspan
Smoking doesn’t just cause diseases, it speeds up how quickly we age. The habit reduces both how long we live and the time we spend in good health through several biological pathways.
Biological aging and telomere shortening
Smokers cells age faster because their telomeres shorten more quickly. These protective caps at chromosome ends naturally get shorter as we age. Studies show smokers have much shorter telomeres than non-smokers. The more cigarettes someone smokes over time, the shorter their telomeres become.
Free radicals from cigarette smoke create oxidative stress and inflammation. This leads to shorter telomeres that cause cells to age and die. People who quit smoking show longer telomeres than current smokers or recent quitters. The body might recover partially after someone stops smoking.
Oxidative stress and chronic inflammation
The 4,000+ chemicals in cigarette smoke damage cells throughout the body. This damage happens through:
- Higher levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) that overwhelm the body’s natural defenses;
- Inflammatory pathways that create more ROS in a continuous cycle;
- Damage to the cell’s repair systems.
Smokers have lower blood levels of antioxidants like ascorbic acid, cysteine and uric acid. This oxidative stress damages DNA, proteins and lipids that cells need to work properly.
Cognitive decline and vascular damage
The brain ages faster in smokers through several mechanisms. Studies show middle-aged men who smoke show faster mental decline than those who never smoked. Executive function suffers more than memory or vocabulary.
Brain scans reveal actual shrinkage in smokers’ brains. More cigarettes and longer smoking habits mean more damage. While quitting prevents further loss, existing damage stays permanent.
Blood vessel damage from smoking plays a key role in mental decline. Smoking reduces nitric oxide availability, which leads to hardened arteries and less blood flow to the brain These changes make smokers brains look older than their actual age.
Our genes, lifestyle smoking habits affect how smoking impacts our health. Light smokers face smaller but real risks. People with existing health problems face even bigger challenges. Poor diet, lack of exercise or too much alcohol mixed with smoking makes things worse.
