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Study of one million women says giving up smoking can extend life for ten years

The study published in The Lancet found that the earlier women give up, the more likely they are to not to see their lifespan cut by a decade.

A STUDY OF more than one million women has found that giving up smoking gave them a high chance of extending their life by ten years – as long as they gave up early enough.

The study which looked at 1.3 million women over the course of five years and was published today in The Lancet found that female smokers are likely to die at least ten years earlier than non-smokers – but stopping before the age of 40 means this likelihood is cut by more than 90 per cent.

Women who stopped before the age of 30 saw the liklihood cut by a massive 97 per cent, the study found.

This is one of the biggest studies so far to find that both the hazards of smoking and also the benefits of stopping are far bigger than previous studies have suggested.

The women recruited for the study, all aged between 50 and 65,  were asked questions about their lifestyle, medical and social factors and resurveyed over the course of around twelve years. Around 66,000 of the women died over the course of the study.

The women who were smokers when they were resurveyed after the first three years were almost three times as likely as non-smokers to die over the following 9 years

Of the 20 per cent of women in the group who were smokers, two thirds of the deaths were found to have been caused by smoking.

The report did not give details on whether the women who had given up smoking suffered from an increased risk of non-fatal illnesses.

“If women smoke like men, they die like men – but whether they are men or women, smokers who stop before reaching middle age will on average gain about an extra ten years of life,” said Professor Richard Peto from the University of Oxford, a co-author of the study.

Both in the UK and in the USA, women born around 1940 were the first generation in which many smoked substantial numbers of cigarettes throughout adult life.  Hence, only in the 21st century could we observe directly the full effects of prolonged smoking, and of prolonged cessation, on premature mortality among women.

The study was published in The Lancet today to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Richard Doll, a physiologist who was one of the first people to identify the link between lung cancer and smoking.

Study: Smoking in cars exceeds safe air quality values, affects children >

Read: Lifestyle ‘vices’ pushing up life assurance premiums, says insurer >

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28 Comments
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    Mute The Animal
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    Aug 6th 2014, 9:31 AM

    Americans must be pretty stupid if Apple thinks people will confuse a Samsung phone with an iPhone…The screens on the Samsung notes are massive…. All the igeeks would wet themselves if an iphone with a similar size screen became a reality…

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    Mute Roger Rabid
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    Aug 6th 2014, 9:44 AM

    If Americans are stupid, imagine how stupid Irish people must be

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    Mute Cpm
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    Aug 6th 2014, 9:52 AM

    It will become a reality, there will (supposedly) be two different models, one with 4.7″ screen in September/October, and another 5.5″ screen later on in the year. The larger one obviously won’t be Apple copying the phablet class of device, as created by Samsung.

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    Mute Ablitive
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    Aug 6th 2014, 9:59 AM

    Americans believe in everything that they see on their television set.

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    Mute punt77
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    Aug 6th 2014, 10:39 AM

    I’m sorry but that comment was moronic. Do you think patent laws come down to what un-technical people might see in front of them that looks like something else??

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    Mute Stephen Earle
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    Aug 6th 2014, 11:13 AM

    The court cases in the US relate to much earlier model phones not the current crop.

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    Aug 6th 2014, 11:15 AM

    Yes, these cases do drag on. It makes zero difference to the unethicality (I just made up a word!) of Samsung.

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    Mute Hung Xi
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    Aug 6th 2014, 12:21 PM

    An iPhone with a bigger screen lol. For years I’ve heard people say the screens on the Galaxy’s were too big and Apple had it just right. What will these numpties say when a big screen iPhone comes out? No doubt it will be something like Apple are innovative.

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    Aug 6th 2014, 12:37 PM

    “For years I’ve heard people say the screens on the Galaxy’s were too big and Apple had it just right.What will these numpties say when a big screen iPhone comes out? No doubt it will be something like Apple are innovative.”

    I will be a direct quote of something Tim Cook says at the launch, a soundbite, something like “it’s the sweet spot of large screen formats” – the way they currently do with this whole “it just works” mantra.

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    Mute yo
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    Aug 6th 2014, 9:37 AM

    It’s not the size that counts its How you use it

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    Mute Cpm
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    Aug 6th 2014, 10:06 AM

    Your wife is so sweet to you!

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    Mute yo
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    Aug 6th 2014, 10:30 AM

    Say your boyfriend loves u

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    Mute Stephen Earle
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    Aug 6th 2014, 11:18 AM

    Oh, how droll

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    Mute Ablitive
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    Aug 6th 2014, 9:42 AM

    Both these companies should be concerned about China’s up and coming smart phones.

    http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/article/5763/chinese-smartphones-chinese-smartphone-makers-targeting-korean-market

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    Mute Stephen Earle
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    Aug 6th 2014, 11:17 AM

    Apple are not concerned. They still sell more than enough at their desired price and are not interested in the cheap end of the market, why should you when your profit fir the last quarter was around 9 billion on a turnover of 37 billion. 37% profit approx. Worry, Apple lol

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    Mute punt77
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    Aug 6th 2014, 9:53 AM

    Samsung are some dirty operators. I’ll never buy one of their products again.

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    Aug 6th 2014, 10:22 AM

    …the forbidden fruit logo says enough about Apple.

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    Mute punt77
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    Aug 6th 2014, 10:43 AM

    Not really. Have a read of Samsung’s background. They’ve been up to dirty tricks – massive world-wide price fixing (it’s down to Samsung that we pay so much for technology because they fixed with the competition to keep production down and prices up) – they’ve been fined numerous times for this, they’ve paid out billions in fines over the years. Bribery on a massive scale. Wholesale stealing of patents. It’s the way they do business: steal the patent’s technology, put out a product, get sued, counter-sue, thus tying everyone up in litigation for years, then settle out of court. They put Kodak out of business basically by stealing their technology. Not just Kodak, lots of companies and thousands of people are out of work because of the way Samsung does business.

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    Aug 6th 2014, 10:47 AM

    http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2014/06/apple-samsung-smartphone-patent-war

    Read this for background – it explains very well the kind of tricks Samsung get up to that end up with us all paying more than we should.

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