Health Library Interactive Tool: How Does Smoking Affect Your Lifespan?From Healthwise

Click here to find out how much smoking affects your lifespan.

This interactive tool can be used to estimate the impact smoking will have on your lifespan. Based on the number of cigarettes you smoked in the past or how many you will smoke in the future, this tool estimates how many years the damaging effects of smoking may take away from your life.

Health tools help you make wise health decisions or take action to improve your health.

	Interactive tools are designed to help people determine health risks, ideal weight, target heart rate, and more.
	Interactive Tool: Are You Ready to Quit Smoking?
	Smoker's life span

The damage caused by smoking varies from person to person. This tool uses an estimate based on statistical averages to increase your awareness of how smoking may be impacting your life.

This tool does not calculate the long-term impact smoking will have on the quality of your life and the lives of people you care about. The disabling effects of smoking-related illnesses such as heart disease, cancer, or emphysema can cause significant suffering and medical expense, regardless of whether they directly affect the number of years of your life.

How much time smoking takes from your life also depends on lifestyle choices other than smoking, such as eating habits and exercise. These factors may increase or decrease the amount of time your life will be shortened by smoking.

Quitting smoking can be difficult, especially if you have been smoking for a long time. It may take several tries before you succeed, but even if you have a strong addiction, it is still possible to quit. And even if you have smoked for many years, quitting smoking now can still increase your lifespan and improve the quality of your life.

The best way to stop smoking is to get help and to follow a plan. Medicine that reduces cravings for nicotine, such as bupropion (Zyban), varenicline (Chantix), or nicotine chewing gum, may also be helpful. For more information about how you can quit smoking, see the topic Quitting Tobacco Use.

If you are not sure about your readiness to quit smoking, use the tool Are You Ready to Quit Smoking?

Source: Shaw M, et al. (2000). Time for a smoke? One cigarette reduces your life by 11 minutes. BMJ, 320(7226): 53.

Author:	Debby Golonka, MPH Caroline Rea, RN, BS, MS	Last Updated: October 11, 2007
Medical Review:	Kathleen Romito, MD - Family Medicine John Hughes, MD - Psychiatry
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