Preventing premature death, improving the quality of life, reducing the risk of cancer, heart, lung and many other diseases - all this, according to numerous studies, gives us a complete cessation of smoking. However, healthcare providers acknowledge that the path to breaking this bad habit can be long, difficult, and, in most cases, unsuccessful. Reducing the intensity of smoking is the best solution for those who, one way or another, cannot overcome nicotine addiction, Israeli scientists say.
For several decades, specialists from the University of Medicine in Tel Aviv have monitored the health status of more than 4.5 thousand people whose smoking habit was formed at the beginning of the last century. The average age of people under the supervision of experts at the time of the first stage of the study was 51 years old. In 1963, each of them filled out a special questionnaire, in which it was necessary to choose one of the three proposed categories regarding the number of cigarettes smoked daily. The first category included those who consumed from 1 to 10 cigarettes per day, the second - from 11 to 20 cigarettes, and the third - more than 21 cigarettes. The next poll took place in 1965. Then the scientists asked private traders whether the number of cigarettes smoked per day had decreased over 2 years, and if so, by how much.
After 40 years, researchers began to study the medical histories of the people who participated in the work. They found that those of them who twice reduced the number of cigarettes consumed daily, managed to reduce the risk of premature death by an average of 15%, and the risk of heart, lung, and cancer diseases by 23% compared with those who did not change the amount of tobacco consumed, or increased it.
Thus, even a partial cessation of smoking can be a good help to your body and become the first step to completely abandon this sloppy, stupid and destructive habit.
