Study: Cutting Smoking Won't Cheat Death

The study looked at 24,959 men and 26,251 women who were aged between 20 to 49 at the start of the investigation. They were quizzed about their smoking habits and their health was monitored. They then screened twice at intervals of between three and 10 years, thus making up an unusually long monitoring period of more than two decades.

Participants were classified as "never smokers"; quitters (those who gave up between first and second check); moderate smokers (1 to 14 cigarettes daily); "reducers" (who cut their consumption by more than half at the second check); and heavy smokers, who smoked at least 15 cigarettes a day.

Among men, "reducers" had a slightly lower death rate from all causes, when compared with heavy smokers, over the first 15 years. But after that, the death rates were virtually the same. Women "reducers" ran half the risk of fatal lung cancer compared with heavy female smokers, but, when death from all causes was factored in, the risk of premature death was 11 percent higher.

"We have no explanation for this phenomenon, beyond the fact that this could be ascribed to chance," admits Bjartveit. The research appears in the specialist journal Tobacco Control, published by the British Medical Association (BMA).