Australian study shows smoking’s damage to health is higher than thought

And even light smoking – consuming ten or fewer cigarettes a day – will double your risk of death.

Pack-a-day smokers have a fourfold greater risk of dying early, a study of the 200,000 Australians aged over 45 taking part in the Sax Institute’s 45 and Up study has found.

The earlier you quit smoking, the better the outcome, the study found.

Until now health experts have been relying on overseas studies about the effects of smoking; this is the first large scale long term Australian study on tobacco use.

And the results from the Australian study are more alarming, showing two thirds of deaths in current smokers can be directly attributed to smoking.

International studies estimate only half the deaths in current smokers can be attributed to their smoking.

“We all know that smoking is bad for your health, but until now we haven’t had direct large-scale evidence from Australia about just how bad it is,” said the 45 and Up study director, Professor Emily Banks.

The study, supported by the National Heart Foundation and Cancer Council NSW, found current smokers were three times more likely to die than people who had never smoked.

“People don’t realise how damaging even light smoking is for your health – for cancer, heart disease, lung disease and a range of other conditions,” said study co-author Associate Professor Freddy Sitas from Cancer Council NSW.

About eight per cent of the people in the study were current smokers and just over a third were past smokers.

The researchers calculated tobacco related deaths by checking Births, Deaths and Marriages against the names of study participants over a four-year period to June 2012.

Study participants who already had cancer, heart disease and stroke at the beginning of the study were not counted in the calculations.

The study was also adjusted for age, annual pre-tax household income, education, region of residence, alcohol consumption and body mass index.

Within time the researchers hope to be able to reveal what caused the deaths of the patients in the study.

Smoking prevalence in Australian peaked in 1945 for men and 1978 for women, and Australia is now experiencing a “mature epidemic” where the full impact of smoking on health is only just being realised, Professor Banks said.

The Australian Health Survey reported in 2011-12 that eight million Australian adults had smoked at some time in their lives and 3.1 million were current smokers.

Smoking rates have been falling over the past decade from 27 per cent to 20 per cent for males and from 21 per cent to 16 per cent for females.

The 45 and Up Study is following the health and ageing of a quarter of a million Australians and is the largest ongoing study of healthy ageing in the Southern Hemisphere.

It measure not just smoking rates but how obesity, alcohol and other factors impact health.

A study of 200,000 Australians shows the habit cuts 10 years off the average smoker’s life and is directly linked to two thirds of deaths in current smokers.

This is much higher than previous international estimates of 50 per cent.

The four-year analysis of health records in the Sax Institute’s 45 and Up Study shows even moderate smoking is a major killer.

“We all know that smoking is bad for your health. But until now we haven’t had direct large-scale evidence from Australia about just how bad it is,” says study leader Professor Emily Banks, the scientific director of the 45 and Up study.

“We’ve been relying on evidence from other countries.”

The study, supported by the National Heart Foundation in collaboration with Cancer Council NSW, shows risk increases with the number of cigarettes smoked a day.

The risk of death is doubled even among those smoking an average of 10 cigarettes a day, says study co-author Associate Professor Freddy Sitas from Cancer Council NSW.

The good news, says Prof Banks, is that stopping smoking at any age reduces the risk.

Smoking is the largest single preventable cause of death in Australia and kills 15,000 people a year, says the Heart Foundation’s Dr Rob Grenfell, who worked on the study.

“People need to realise that smoking is a dangerous activity,” he said.

“There’s no safe level of smoking and there’s no such thing as social smoking.”

11 Oct 2013