A study featured in the June 11 edition of JAMA’s Archives of Internal Medicine reveals that older patients have a higher mortality rate due to smoking and that quitting smoking is linked to a lower mortality risk in older aged people.

Background information of the study states that smoking is a known risk factor for many chronic diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease, yet epidemiological evidence is mostly based on research conducted in middle-aged adults.

Carolin Gellert and her team from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg state:

“We provide a thorough review and meta-analysis of studies assessing the impact of smoking on all-cause mortality in people 60 years and older, paying particular attention to the strength of the association by age, the impact of smoking cessation at older age, and factors that might specifically affect results of epidemiological studies on the impact of smoking in an older population.”

The team analyzed 17 studies from the U.S., China, Australia, Japan, England, Spain and France, published between 1987 and 2011, with study populations ranging from between 863 to 877,243 participants and follow-up times, ranging from between 3 to 50 years. Overall, the team discovered that the relative mortality rate for those who never smoked compared with current smokers is 83% higher and 34% higher compared with former smokers.

The researchers declare: “In this review and meta-analysis on the association of smoking and all-cause mortality at older age, current and former smokers showed an approximately 2-fold and 1.3-fold risk for mortality, respectively. This review and meta-analysis demonstrates that the relative risk for death notably decreases with time since smoking cessation even at older age.”

Tai Hing Lam, M.D., of the University of Hong Kong, wrote in an invited comment:

“Most smokers grossly underestimate their own risks. Many older smokers misbelieve that they are too old to quit or too old to benefit from quitting. Because of reverse causality and from seeing deaths of old friends who had quit recently, some misbelieve that quitting could be harmful. A simple, direct, strong and evidence-based warning is needed,” Lam continues.”

He encourages people to stop smoking, concluding: “If you have helped two smokers quit, you have saved (at least) one life.”

Written By Petra Rattue