Quitting Smoking Benefits Health Despite Weight Gain

Stop Smoking

The benefits to cardiovascular health that are associated with quitting smoking aren’t blunted by the modest weight gain, according to a new study. The findings underscore the benefits of putting a stop to smoking.

Cigarette smoking causes about 1 in every 5 deaths in the United States each year. Smoking harms nearly every organ in the body, including the heart, lungs, blood vessels, eyes, reproductive organs, bones, bladder and digestive organs. Smoking cessation greatly lowers the risk of many diseases and conditions, including cardiovascular disease.

About 80% of smokers who quit gain weight. Obesity is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, so health professionals have wondered whether this weight gain might counter the health benefits of quitting. A team of researchers that included Dr. James B. Meigs of Harvard Medical School, Dr. Carole Clair—now at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland—and Dr. roline S. Fox of NIH’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) set out to investigate.

Photo of a person breaking a cigarette.

The researchers analyzed data collected between 1984 and 2011 from over 3,000 adults in the community-based Framingham Heart Study. The participants underwent physical examinations every 4 years, including measures of weight, blood pressure and diabetes status.


 Get The Latest By Email

Weekly Magazine Daily Inspiration

Participants were categorized as smoker, recent quitter (4 years or less), long-term quitter (more than 4 years) or nonsmoker, based on their reported smoking status at each exam. The presence of cardiovascular disease (including heart attack, angina, stroke, peripheral arterial disease and heart failure) was assessed over approximately 6 years. The study was supported in part by NHLBI and NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). Journal of the American Medical Association.

The researchers found that, among participants without diabetes, those who quit smoking had about half the risk of cardiovascular problems as those who smoked. A similar benefit was found among those with diabetes, but the number of participants with diabetes wasn’t large enough to ensure this result wasn’t due to chance.

Participants without diabetes who were recent quitters gained about 6 pounds over the 4 year period since their last exam visit. Long-term quitters gained about 2 pounds, which was similar to that gained by smokers and nonsmokers. The researchers found that, despite gaining weight, the participants who stopped smoking maintained their lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

Our findings suggest that a modest weight gain, around 5-10 pounds, has a negligible effect on the net benefit of quitting smoking,” Fox says. Being able to quantify to some degree the relationship between the benefits and side effects of smoking cessation can help in counseling those who have quit or are thinking about quitting.

The researchers plan to conduct follow-up studies to determine whether this finding holds among people with diabetes.

Article Source: NIH Research Matters

AVAILABLE LANGUAGES

English Afrikaans Arabic Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Danish Dutch Filipino Finnish French German Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Korean Malay Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Spanish Swahili Swedish Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese

follow InnerSelf on

facebook icontwitter iconyoutube iconinstagram iconpintrest iconrss icon

 Get The Latest By Email

Weekly Magazine Daily Inspiration

Wednesday, 12 May 2021 08:30

In 2019, Burger King Sweden released a plant-based burger, the Rebel Whopper, and the reaction was underwhelming. So, the company challenged its customers to taste the difference.

Thursday, 27 May 2021 05:24

Life, by its very nature is … alive! Because it is alive, it is not just responding in a set, mechanical way, but rather it is responsive to what is needed and helpful and useful. Cells might...

Sunday, 16 May 2021 14:24

The human body is an amazing thing, full of systems, organs, nerves, and vessels that work together in harmony. You’ve seen the body described as a machine, as a city, or even as a factory....

Monday, 17 May 2021 08:55

Maybe you’re trying to eat healthier these days, aiming to get enough of the good stuff and limit the less-good stuff. You’re paying attention to things like fiber and fat and vitamins… and...

Thursday, 15 April 2021 07:10

Blooming flowers, chirping birds and long-awaited rays of sunshine: The first signs of spring are often greeted with joy. But soon comes the realization that with warm weather comes ticks. 

Sunday, 02 May 2021 08:18

When you think about soil, you probably think of rolling fields of countryside. But what about urban soil? With city dwellers expected to account for 68% of the world’s population by 2050, this oft...

New Attitudes - New Possibilities

InnerSelf.comClimateImpactNews.com | InnerPower.net
MightyNatural.com | WholisticPolitics.com | InnerSelf Market
Copyright ©1985 - 2021 InnerSelf Publications. All Rights Reserved.