A new study has found that each cigarette reduces a smoker’s overall life expectancy by about 20 minutes.
After accounting for social, economic and other factors, researchers at University College London estimated that each cigarette shortens life expectancy by 17 minutes for men and 22 minutes for women.
The experts published their report in the journal Addiction.
This means that if someone smokes a pack of 20 cigarettes a day, each pack of cigarettes shortens their life by about seven hours.
She said that this wasted time for smokers is time that they could spend with their loved ones in good health.
She added that smoking does not show negative consequences in the last period of life, but rather it erodes healthy aspects throughout the life span.
The study was commissioned by the UK Department of Health and Social Care. It included data on male mortality from the British Doctors Study and data on women from the Million Women Study.
The studies found that, on average, people who smoked throughout their lives lost 10 years of their life expectancy compared to people who had never smoked.
