New research from the United Kingdom has revealed that life expectancy can decrease by an estimated 22 minutes for women and 17 minutes for men due to a single cigarette.
In 2000, data published in The BMJ estimated one cigarette would only cost a person 11 minutes of their life.
Since this estimate, daily cigarette consumption in Britain has dropped significantly for men (15.8 to 11.5) and women (13.6 to 9.5), according to the data published in December.
Commissioned by the U.K.'s Department for Health and Social Care, the research used more up-to-date estimates of years lost to smoking, including due to cancer-related illnesses, and estimated mean consumption of cigarettes from the BMJ estimate in 2000.
"Most smokers realize that smoking could shorten their life but not the impact of each cigarette they smoke," researchers wrote in the study.
"Smoking primarily eats into the relatively healthy middle years rather than shortening the period at the end of life, which is often marked by chronic illness or disability," it reads. "So a 60-year-old smoker will typically have the health profile of a 70-year-old non-smoker."
In the abstract, it was noted there were caveats, such as some smokers living long, healthy lives, variation of puffs, types of cigarettes smoked, age of initiation to smoking, and individual tolerance to toxicants.
"Stopping smoking at every age is beneficial but the sooner smokers get off this escalator of death the longer and healthier they can expect their lives to be," the research states.
