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Comprehensive overview: Breast milk's nutritional and non-nutritional components, and health benefits for mother and infant through breastfeeding
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Comprehensive overview: Breast milk's nutritional and non-nutritional components, and health benefits for mother and infant through breastfeeding
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Every cigarette smoked cuts life expectancy by 20 minutes, emphasizing cumulative harm and the notable health benefits of early cessation. onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Tobacco use remains a primary contributor to disease, disability, and premature death across the globe. A recent editorial summarizes data demonstrating that smoking reduces life expectancy by approximately 20 minutes per cigarette smoked—17 minutes for men and 22 minutes for women.
The estimate, which drew on data from long-term studies such as the British Doctors Study and the Million Women Study, accounts for factors like smoking rates and early death outcomes over several decades. It’s also grounded in better and more up-to-date data, including studies that tracked the effects of smoking for up to 50 years.
While smoking rates have declined in recent decades, the harm caused per cigarette may not have decreased substantially, as smokers may inhale more deeply or compensate for fewer cigarettes smoked. However, urinary cotinine levels—a marker of toxicant exposure—show only modest changes, suggesting that the risks per cigarette remain consistent with earlier estimates.
These findings emphasize that the harm from smoking is cumulative, and quitting earlier can markedly reduce the risk of early death and disease. Smokers who quit at any age can prevent substantial loss of life expectancy, with each cigarette avoided contributing to a longer, healthier life. Smokers in their 60s, for example, may experience health improvements that narrow the gap between their current health and that of a non-smoker several years younger.
Though individual factors like smoking intensity and age of initiation vary, the general conclusion remains the same: Smoking shortens life at every stage, and cessation at any age offers considerable, tangible health benefits. Like many harmful lifestyle behaviors, smoking accelerates epigenetic aging. Learn more in this clip featuring Dr. Steve Horvath.
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Study suggests two hours of moderate exercise per week reduces risk of brain aneurysm rupture by 20%. (2019) www.eurekalert.org
Exercising 30 minutes a day reduces the risk of a ruptured brain aneurysm.
Exercise and other forms of physical activity exert profound cardioprotective effects. In fact, people who regularly engage in moderate leisure time physical activity are less likely to develop cardiovascular disease than people who are inactive. Findings from a 2019 study suggest that just 30 minutes of moderate exercise daily reduces the risk of experiencing a ruptured brain aneurysm.
The bleeding associated with a ruptured brain aneurysm impedes the delivery of oxygen to brain tissue, potentially causing a stroke and impairing cognitive and motor function. Experts estimate that as many as 12 percent of people who experience a ruptured brain aneurysm will die immediately; as many as 45 percent will die within 30 days of the event.
The study involved more than 65,000 adults enrolled in the FINRISK, an ongoing study of risk factors for chronic diseases among people living in Finland. The investigators collected information about the participants' physical activity, including activities performed during leisure time, commuting, and working. They also reviewed medical records and autopsy registries to identify those who had experienced a ruptured brain aneurysm.
They found that 543 of the participants experienced a ruptured brain aneurysm during a 42-year period. However, those who engaged in regular physical activity were protected: For every 30-minute increase in weekly leisure-time physical activity, the risk of experiencing a ruptured brain aneurysm decreased by 5 percent. The protective effects of leisure-time activity were observed across all age groups and were particularly strong for smokers. Participants who had an active commute were protected as well, but this protection lessened upon retirement, when they stopped commuting. Interestingly, those who had moderate or high work-related physical activity were 34 to 41 percent more likely to experience a ruptured brain aneurysm.
These findings suggest that just 30 minutes of moderate leisure-time exercise and physical activity daily exert robust cardioprotective effects, reducing the risk of ruptured brain aneurysm. Learn more about the benefits of exercise in our overview article.
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Early menopause may be linked to increased risk of brain aneurysm. (2012) www.eurekalert.org
From the article:
The average age at which women in both groups had started the menopause was similar, and analysis of the results showed that later menopause and use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) protected against the risk of a cerebral aneurysm, lessening the risk by 21% and 77%, respectively.
Premature menopause - before the age of 40 - had occurred in one in four (26%) of the women who had had an aneurysm compared with around one in five (19%) of those in the comparison group.
And each successive four year increase in the age at which a woman went through the menopause lessened the likelihood of a cerebral aneurysm by around 21%.
Smoking did not seem to be linked to an increase in risk, while alcohol consumption was of borderline significance.
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Data from nearly 80,000 twin pairs suggest that brain aneurysm ruptures are more commonly caused by environmental factors than by genes. (2010) www.sciencedaily.com
From the article:
During the past few decades, the genetic makeup has been regarded as playing a significant role in the development of SAH [subarachnoid haemorrhage]. Contrary to this belief, however, a twin study recently published in the journal Stroke showed that environmental factors account for most of the susceptibility to develop SAH Conducted in Finland, Sweden and Denmark, the study is the largest population level twin study in the world.
This means that instead of screening the close family members of SAH patients, the focus of preventive treatment may now be increasingly shifted to the efficient management of hypertension and smoking cessation intervention. This is what we do with other cardiovascular diseases as well."
The Nordic study combined data on almost 80,000 pairs of twins over several decades. All in all, the follow-up time of all of the twin pairs corresponds to a staggering 6 million person-years.
The researchers nevertheless emphasize that there are rare cases of families among whose members SAH is significantly more common than in the overall population. In these cases genetic factors are the principal cause underlying the development of the disease.
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Hypertensive smoking women have up to 20-fold higher risk of brain aneurysm ruptures. (2013) www.sciencedaily.com
From the article:
- If smoking women with high systolic blood pressure values have 20 times higher rate of these brain bleeds than never-smoking men with low blood pressure values, it may very well be that these women diagnosed with unruptured intracranial aneurysms should be treated. On the other hand, never-smoking men with low blood pressure values and intracranial aneurysms may not need to be treated at all.
In this largest SAH risk factor study ever, the study group also identified three new risk factors for SAH: previous myocardial infarction, history of stroke in mother, and elevated cholesterol levels in men. The results revise the understanding of the epidemiology of SAH and indicate that the risk factors for SAH appear to be similar to those for other cardiovascular diseases.
- We have previously shown that lifestyle risk factors affect significantly the life expectancy of SAH survivors, and now we have shown that the same risk factors also affect dramatically the risk of SAH itself.
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Smokers may be nearly twice as likely to develop an abdominal aortic aneurysm. (2016) www.eurekalert.org
From the article:
The study found the lifetime risk of an abdominal aortic aneurysm were: 1 in 17 among all study participants; 1 in 9 among current smokers; 1 in 9 among those in the top third of smoking pack-years (number of cigarettes smoked over a lifetime), whether a current or former smoker; 1 in 12 among current female smokers.
Researchers also found those who had quit smoking for 3-8 years (recent quitters) still had an approximately 2.6 to 3.5 fold increased risk for both clinical and asymptomatic abdominal aortic aneurysm in the next 15 years compared to never smokers. Their lifetime risk was 6.6 percent higher than long-term quitters.
For women, authors note the steep increase in risk is particularly concerning given the United States Preventive Services Task Force recommends that current or former male smokers undergo an ultrasound screening for an abdominal aortic aneurysm once between the ages of 65 and 75 but makes no such recommendation for women.
[…]
The study also found that being older, white, or having high levels of bad cholesterol also increased the risk of abdominal aortic aneurysm.
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Carriers of a gene variant that increases the chance of brain aneurysm by 37-48%, fivefold their risk if they smoke. (2010) www.sciencedaily.com
From the article:
Researchers have confirmed three gene changes that raise the risk that a blood vessel in the brain will weaken and balloon out (aneurysm), creating a life-threatening chance of rupture. Smoking, the biggest risk factor for brain aneurysm, is five times more dangerous in people with these gene variations. However, a second study on the same population notes that most people with aneurysm die of cancer or heart problems.
[…]
In one study (Broderick, abstract 156), researchers found that the chance of an intracranial aneurysm increased between 37 percent and 48 percent for people who carried one copy of an identified risky gene variation. However, when the gene variant was combined with smoking the equivalent of one pack a day for 20 years, the risk increased more than five-fold. People with two copies of the gene variant were at even higher risk.
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Even after 5 years of abstinence, former heavy smokers have more than double the risk of a ruptured brain aneurysm. (2012) www.sciencedaily.com
From the article:
After taking account of influential factors, such as salt intake, working hours, weight and family history of diabetes, smokers were almost three times as likely to have a brain bleed as non-smokers.
The impact of smoking was cumulative: the longer and more heavily a person had smoked, the greater was their risk of a brain bleed.
Quitting smoking cut the risk of a ruptured aneurysm by 59% after five or more years – bringing it down to the level of non-smokers. But this was not the case among heavy smokers.
Those who had smoked 20 or more cigarettes a day were still more than twice as likely to have a ruptured aneurysm as those who had never smoked. […]
In the short term, smoking thickens blood and drives up blood pressure, both of which can increase the risk of a brain bleed. These effects can be reversed by stopping smoking. But smoking also induces permanent changes in the structure of artery walls, say the authors. These changes may be greater in heavy smokers, they say.
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Insomnia, hypertension and smoking, but not high triglyceride levels, are considered possible risk factors for brain aneurysm rupture. www.sciencedaily.com
From the article:
Data from several genome-wide association studies were used to gauge genetic associations to lifestyle and cardiometabolic risk factors. […] According to the analysis:
-A genetic predisposition for insomnia was associated with a 24% increased risk for intracranial aneurysm and aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.
-The risk for intracranial aneurysm was about three times higher for smokers vs. non-smokers.
-The risk for intracranial aneurysm was almost three times higher for each 10 mm Hg increase in diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number in a blood pressure reading).
-High triglyceride levels and high BMI did not demonstrate an increased risk for intracranial aneurysm and aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.