Too Old to Stop Smoking?

I have heard people say over the years that they have been smoking for so long that stopping smoking won’t make any difference to their life expectancy and health. In fact, there is much research that indicates that no matter how long you have been smoking or how old you are, there are still significant benefits to quitting smoking that accumulate the longer you stay stopped.

For example:

within 24 hours, your blood pressure has dropped and circulation begun to return to normal, putting you less at risk of heart issues which might have resulted from high blood pressure caused by smoking

within 12 hours, your body has flushed out carbon monoxide from cigarettes meaning that your body is more oxygenated

within 3 days, nicotine has been eliminated from your body

within 9 months, significant healing will have occurred within the lungs. The cilia (small hairs) within the lungs will have recovered.

After a year, your risk of coronary heart disease will have halved.

The longer you stay a non-smoker, the more the benefits accrue.

We all know that smoking is bad for your health. We tend to associate it with lung disease and specifically cancer. But there are other lesser talked about effects of long-term smoking which you may not be aware of.

These include smoking’s detrimental effect on bone health. Smoking affects the body’s ability to absorb calcium leading to lower bone density and more fragile bones. It appears to also break down oestrogen more quickly which helps to build a healthy skeleton. It is because of the reduction in oestrogen that post-menopausal women are more prone to bone loss and osteoporosis. Continuing to smoke post menopause therefore is likely to exacerbate this. In fact, smoking has been associated with bringing on an earlier menopause in some women.

Smoking also has a detrimental effect on healing. In the elderly, when a bone is fractured such as following a fall, it may not heal properly or heal more slowly than in a non-smoker. Very often a smoker will be urged to quit smoking before surgery because of its effects on slowing down or even inhibiting wound healing. Smoking is also associated with higher levels of pain post-operatively compared with non-smokers and with greater vulnerability to pneumonia and wound infections.

Research has also shown that smokers may be more vulnerable to auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus erythematosis, even if smoking is light. Daily smoking in women may make them particularly vulnerable.

The fact is that smoking affects every system in the body. Taking smoking away, allows the system to begin to return to healthier functioning, particularly if you do other things to promote your health and, the body can do a lot of repairing - at any age.