how much does smoking actually shorten your life?

Question

my great nan smoked 20 a day since she was 12 and died at 97 in her own home able bodied did everything herself, is it all down to luck?

Answer 1

That can't be answered in a simple number. It depends on a lot of things such as:

1. How long the person has been smoking
2. At what age they began smoking.
3. The condition of their overall health
4. How much they smoke
5. How often they smoke
6. The type of cigarettes they smoke
7. Do they have good habits that counteract the bad
8. Do they have other bad habits that compound the effects of smoking

Either way, your "nan" was lucky. Unfortunately, a lot of people that smoke are not that lucky. Aside from death there are still a lot of other negative effects. It really is best to never start. And if you do, quit as soon as you are ready and able to.

Answer 2

All I can say is your nan was very lucky to live so long. Both of my parents were heavy smokers. They both died of smoking related diseases. My dad died of lung cancer (aged 62). My mum died of emphysema (aged 67). Both my parents were relatively young when they died.

You can eat five portions of fruit and veg a day and exercise regularly, but this healthy behaviour means little if you continue to smoke.

Research has shown that smoking reduces life expectancy by seven to eight years.

The number of people under the age of 70 who die from smoking related diseases exceeds the total figure for deaths caused by breast cancer, AIDS, traffic accidents and drug addiction.

The more cigarettes you smoke in a day and the longer you've smoked, the higher your risk of lung cancer. Similarly the risk rises the deeper you inhale and the earlier in life you started smoking.

Believe me cigarettes do not carry a health warning for nothing.

Answer 3

Well, in health class we are talking about smoking, and I think I heard that smoking shortens your life 10 years. Whatever you do though, don't smoke.

Answer 4

Everyone is different, and everything from cigarettes, to food, to alcohol will effect each of us differently. The truth is, no one- not even the doctors, know what is best for us, as individuals.
Smoking decreases oxygen in the blood stream, introduces several toxins into the body, constricts blood vessels leading to higher blood pressure and stroke, and to cardiovascular damage, causing heart attack....it also damages lung tissue, and erodes the throat and esophagus....so basically, it all depends on how long each body can tolerate it all.
How do we really know how long that is??? We don't.

Answer 5

The way this works is that for every smoker that lives to a ripe old age there are countless others that die in their late 40's or early 50's from heart disease, strokes and lung cancer. I know few of them, without fail they all wish they never started.

Answer 6

smoking is a risk factor, there is no way to determine how much it will shorten your life, but it WILL shorten your life. Just think, your nan could have lived till she was 110 perhaps.

Answer 7

When your time is up it will be up do what ever makes you happy if we all didn't do or eat what people say that are bad for you then there be no point of living.I'm a non smoker.

Answer 8

No.

You lose 12 mins of your life for each cig smoked.

I was born in 1970, but died in 1962.

Time to give up I think!

Answer 9

Not smoking will not make your life shorter.

Smoking means absorbing toxins, polonium and lead.

Answer 10

Hard to say - but I've smoked all me life and I've never been shorter than 1ft 1". Mind you that's when I was born like.