Each cigarette takes 20 minutes off your life, a new study finds

A single cigarette every now and then may not kill you – but according to new research, each one will take an average of 19.5 minutes off your life.

The study, conducted at University College London, determined that women lose 22 minutes and men 17 minutes for every cigarette they smoke.

But there’s good news: Quitting smoking at any age can make a difference to your life expectancy, and kicking your 10-a-day habit this New Year’s Day means that by January 8, you can prevent wasting a whole day of your life.

The research, commissioned by the UK Department of Health and Social Care, provides a sharper picture of smokers than before. Previous estimates were that each cigarette shaved off 11 minutes over a lifetime.

New research shows that smoking a pack of 20 cigarettes shortens life by almost 7 hours.

Even a single cigarette a day has a huge impact: smoking just once a day for 10 years can shorten a person’s life by 62,050 minutes, or 43 days. For women, life is shortened by 80,300 minutes, or nearly 56 days.

“Smoking is an expensive and deadly habit, and these findings reveal the shocking reality of this addiction, highlighting how important it is to quit,” said Public Health Minister Andrew Gwynne.

The math turns out that quitting a bad health habit can turn back hours, days and even weeks of life.

“Evidence suggests that people lose an average of 20 minutes of life for every cigarette they smoke. The sooner a person quits smoking, the longer they live. Quitting smoking at any age significantly improves health and the benefits start almost immediately,” said Sarah Jackson, lead research fellow, UCL Alcohol and Tobacco Research Group.

“It’s never too late to make a positive change to your health and there are a number of effective products and treatments that can help smokers quit for good.”

Dr. Sarah Jarvis pointed out that smoking also contributes to many health issues, including heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, dementia and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).

And the authors of the study, which will be published in the Journal of Addiction, emphasized that this means not only a shortened life, but a shorter span of time with good quality of life.

“Studies suggest that smokers typically lose about the same number of healthy years as they lose total life years,” they said.

“Thus, smoking mainly eats away at the relatively healthy middle years rather than shortening the period at the end of life, which is often marked by chronic disease or disability. So a 60-year-old smoker will usually have the health profile of a 70-year-old non-smoker.

A 2022 study even found that quitting smoking is as effective as taking heart attack prevention drugs in reducing the risk of heart disease.

In addition to the health impact, smoking also puts a big dent in your wallet: WalletHub’s 2019 “The Real Cost of Smoking by State Report” found that New Yorkers spend $226,000 on tobacco products over a lifetime.

If you’re trying to quit smoking, avoiding certain trigger foods can help.