A study urged smokers to quit smoking at the beginning of the new year after new analyzes showed how many minutes each smoker loses from his life with each cigarette he smokes.
According to expert estimates, men lose 17 minutes of their lives with each cigarette, while women lose 22 minutes of their lives with each cigarette, according to the British PA Media agency.
These numbers are greater than previous estimates, which indicated that each cigarette shortens a smoker’s life by 11 minutes.
The new estimates are based on updated figures from long-term studies that tracked population health, which indicate that each cigarette leads to an average loss of 20 minutes of life between both sexes.
Researchers from University College London pointed out that the harm resulting from smoking is “cumulative,” and the earlier a person stops smoking and avoids more cigarettes, the longer his life will be.
According to the new analysis, which was commissioned by the British Ministry of Health and Social Care, a smoker who consumes 10 cigarettes a day, if he quits smoking on the first of next January, can, by the eighth day of the same month, “avoid losing an entire day of his life.”