Saturday Quack: Once a Smoker, Always a Smoker

Quitting smoking is very hard, and many people need to make several attempts before one of them succeeds. There’s a belief that it gets harder to quit as you get older. That may be because the number of failed attempts is mounting. However, there is, indeed, hope for older quitters.

Virginia Reichert, a nurse practitioner from New York , reported an interesting finding at the CHEST 2007 meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians. Over 2,000 patients went through a 6-week stop-smoking program. At 30 days after the end of the program, the quit rate was about58%, across the board. But a year later, 52% of the 145 participants over 65 remained off cigarettes, while only 35% of those younger than 65 had done so. This result shows that it’s never too late to stop smoking. And some of the benefits can begin within 8 hours.