Dr Maurie Markman discusses an editorial suggesting smoking just one cigarette could cut 20 minutes from a person’s life.
Hello. I’m Dr Maurie Markman, from City of Hope, and I’d like to briefly discuss an absolutely fascinating editorial. I can’t be clearer that this is a neat publication. Its title is simple: “, and I would actually put this editorial into the category of optimizing communication in healthcare.
Clearly, here, we are talking about communication that relates to the risk for cancer. The risk of smoking is extremely well known and has been known for decades. A large variety of approaches have been used through various forms of media, lectures, schools, and public health pronouncements to communicate the dangers of smoking, particularly in the younger population; the critical benefits of stopping smoking if you’ve already started, and in particular, the amount of life gained at the end of the journey. However, this focus on life gained or how long you might live, as powerful as it is, is something really too far in the future for a 15-year-old, an 18-year-old, or a 20-year-old to appreciate. Again, it’s not impossible. We’ve made an enormous impact, in a positive way, in terms of reducing smoking. We still have a very large segment of the population in the United States, and certainly worldwide, that continue to smoke or start smoking. This analysis, I think, is fascinating. The data are very hard, very solid, and as good as you can get. The investigators used data from the British Doctors Study, which looked at 50 years of follow-up — I mean, extremely hardcore data science here — and also the Million Women Study in Great Britain. There were men and women with long-term follow-up. Extensive data looked at survival, number of cigarettes smoked a day, a variety of socioeconomic factors, and even took into consideration this idea that if people smoke less, there may be increased intensity of smoking so they can get the nicotine fix. They looked at all this and they analyzed it. Then they did something that was very, I think, insightful, novel, and really simple. They summarized this vast quantity of highly meaningful data by looking at the impact on survival of a single cigarette that an individual might light up today. Somebody may be thinking about beginning smoking but have never put a cigarette in their mouth and lit it. Or maybe they looked at and said, “It tastes terrible but I have all this pressure on me. All my peers are doing it. Everyone’s telling me to do it.” Based on this summary, each cigarette you smoke is going to cost you 20 minutes off your life — 20 minutes less you are going to live. Two cigarettes, 40 minutes; three cigarettes, an hour less. It’s a simple but potentially very powerful message of why you shouldn’t smoke, or if you do, why you should stop. With every cigarette, another 20 minutes are taken away from you. This is potentially a very potent message. Comments on Medscape are moderated and should be professional in tone and on topic. You must declare any conflicts of interest related to your comments and responses. Please see our
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