Quit Cigarette For A Week And Save A Day

Quit Cigarette For A Week And Save A Day: New Year's celebrations are all about reflecting on the year that went by and taking resolutions to do better. So, if you are someone who smokes and has taken a resolution to quit smoking, experts have something good for you! As per a latest research from University College of London, commissioned by the Department for Health and Social Care, smokers who quit smoking for a week can save one entire day of their lives.

The study found that smokers, assuming they smoked 10 cigarettes a day, who choose to quid on January 1 could save one whole day of their life by January 8. As per the latest, with every cigarette that you smoke, you take away 20 minutes of your life. This means, 7 hours of your life is lost if you smoke an average pack of 20 cigarettes.

If you are to take a resolution to quit cigarette on New Year's Day, by February 20, you will be able to get a week of your life back and by the end of the year, you can get 50 days of your life back. The research also noted the landmark Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which recently passed second reading in the House of Commons. The bill includes measures to create the first smoke-free generation, phasing out the sale of tobacco products across the UK to anyone born after January 2009.

The UK National Health Service also allows smokers to access a personal quit plan on the NHS Quit Smoking app.

A research conducted by Censuswide shows that more than half (53%) of smokers plan to quit smoking as their new year's resolution. Smoking is the number one preventable cause of death, disability and ill health in the UK. Smoking also leads to 80,000 deaths a year in UK, with 1 in 4 cancer deaths in England, killing up to two-thirds of its long-term users.

Within 72 hours of quitting, smokers can notice that their breathing has become easier, and energy has increased. After 12 weeks, your blood circulation improves and by 1 year, your risk of heart attack is halved as compared to a smoker.

Your lung contains around 500 million tiny air sacks, known as alveoli that pull oxygen from the air when you breathe and releases carbon dioxide when you exhale. Smoking destroys these air sacks by killing the cells that line them, thus causing your lung to damage, overtime.

Lung cancer is also the most common cancer worldwide and claims around 1.8 million lives each year. The study also mentioned that by reducing smoking rates to 5% by 2050, it could extend life expectancy by one year for men and 0.2 years for women. It could actually lead to saving 876 million years of life, if the number of men and women is combined.

In fact, in November 2024, the US Surgeon General Vivek H Murthy released a report on tobacco-related disease and death. He said, "Tobacco use imposes a heavy toll on families across generations. Now is the time to accelerate our efforts to create a world in which zero lives are harmed by or lost to tobacco."

Smoking can also rapidly increase insulin resistance, which is a primary characteristic feature of the disease type 2 diabetes. Nicotine and other chemicals in cigarette smoke impair body's capacity to utilize its own insulin appropriately. This makes it difficult to regulate blood sugar levels and causes hyperglycemia (high blood sugar).