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It's Never Too Late to Kick The Habit
Study Links Lung Function to Long-Term Survival
Maggie smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for 20 years. "I started by
'coming up to Cool' and hung around for a 'long way, Baby,'" she recalls. By
1994, she couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without breathing hard and her
skin had long since lost anything like a rosy glow.
Two weeks ago -- Aug. 31 -- marked Maggie's six-year anniversary as a
nonsmoker. Today she still pants going up stairs, but it takes about five
flights to get that reaction. She works out 30 minutes a day and a quick look
in the mirror confirms that she is "in the pink."
Maggie's story confirms scientific findings reported by a team of researchers
from Finland: it is never too late to kick the nicotine habit. Even smokers
with significantly impaired lung function will live longer if they quit
smoking, according to a study in the September issue of Thorax involving nearly
1,600 middle-aged Finnish men who were followed for 30 years.
Men with the worst lung function when the study began actually "benefited
especially from smoking cessation," according to the researchers. Men who quit
smoking lived six to seven years longer than the men who kept lighting up.
Holger J. Sch�nemann, MD, MS, an assistant professor of the School of Medicine
and Biomedical Sciences at State University of New York at Buffalo, tells that
he agrees entirely with the findings of the study. Sch�nemann is author of a
study in the September issue of CHEST that suggests that lung function is
highly predictive of long-term survival in the general population. Sch�nemann
reports on 29 years of follow-up of patients Unrolled in the Buffalo Health
Study.
"We found similar results in a different population -- both men and women --
but the important message is that survival can be improved if the person quits
smoking," says Sch�nemann. "We have known for a long time that if smokers quit
it will slow the decline in lung function. There is a natural decline with age
but smoking worsens that decline. These data from the [Finnish study]
demonstrated that the decline can be slowed."
Sch�nemann says the study from Finland as well as his study underline the
importance of lung function tests. "These can be done in a [doctor's] office
using a handheld device," says Sch�nemann. "For things like life insurance or
employment physicals or even annual checkups, the lung function should be
included."
For smokers, he says, this lung function test is especially important because
"you can give them a number. You can say to the smoker, 'See this is your lung
function. If your lung function doesn't improve, your risk of dying is this
percentage.'" In his paper Sch�nemann reported that people whose lung function
was in the lowest 20% were more than twice as likely to have a fatal heart
attack as persons who had better lung function scores.
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