Smoking is responsible for 25 per cent of deaths between age 35 and 69 and smokers die, on average, a decade earlier than their non-smoking peers. The good news is that quitting at any time will add years to your life–and the earlier you quit the better. According to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, smokers who quit before age 35 will gain back all 10 years of life lost. Quitting between ages 35 and 44 restores nine years; those who wait until age 45 to 54 gain back six years and those who quit between 55 and 64 restore only four years. “Even over age 65 there are benefits, but if you smoke you have less chance of reaching that age,” says Dr. Prabhat Jha, an epidemiologist at the Center for Global Health Research in Toronto and the lead researcher on the study.
