Reducing smoking rates could add a year to life expectancy says ‘The Lancet’
The Lancet Public Health journal suggest that reducing smoking rates to five percent of current levels by 2050 could increase life expectancy by one year for men and by 0.2 years for women.
Recent global modelling studies published in The Lancet Public Health journal suggest that reducing smoking rates to five percent of current levels by 2050 could increase life expectancy by one year for men and by 0.2 years for women.
Researchers found that, based on current trends, global smoking rates could drop to around 21 percent for men and about four percent for women by 2050. Moreover, enhancing life expectancy, ramping up efforts to eliminate tobacco use could prevent the loss of 876 million years of life due to premature death as per the Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factors (GBD) Tobacco Forecasting Collaborators.
The research also indicated that a ban on the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products could prevent 1.2 million lung cancer deaths across 185 countries by 2095. Nearly two-thirds of these deaths would be avoided in low- and middle-income countries, which generally have younger populations compared to high-income countries.
Stein Emil Vollset, the senior author from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, stated, “We must maintain our momentum in reducing and ultimately eliminating smoking worldwide. Our findings show that millions of premature deaths could be prevented by ending smoking.”
The estimates of preventable deaths were based on an analysis of how a ban on tobacco sales would affect lung cancer deaths in individuals born between 2006 and 2010.
The research also highlights the potential impact of the tobacco-free generation policy, which seeks to prohibit tobacco sales to individuals born after a specific year. However, the authors noted that this policy has not yet been implemented in any country.
Earlier this year, New Zealand repealed its December 2022 legislation that banned the sale of tobacco products to anyone born in or after 2009.
However, upholding existing tobacco policies, the authors urged the introduction of new measures to prevent further smoking-related health risks and to safeguard the progress achieved over the past decades.
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