Smokers die sooner, live with more disease

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, May 11 (UPI) -- A 30-year study of 54,000 men and women in Norway found smoking had a tremendous impact on mortality and cardiovascular disease.

Haakon Meyer of the University of Oslo and Norwegian Institute of Public Health said the follow-up study began in 1974 with an invitation to every middle-age man and woman -- ages 35-49 -- living in three counties of Norway to take part in a basic cardiovascular screening examination. Ninety-one percent participated in the baseline screening.

From the original 54,075 participants, 13,103 died by the time of follow-up. Of these, 45 percent of the heavy-smoking men had died during the 30 years, compared to 18 percent of those who never-smoked.

Thirty-three percent of the heavy-smoking women had died, but 13 percent of the never-smokers died.

"These results show what a tremendous impact smoking has on mortality," Meyer told the EuroPRevent 2009 in Stockholm, Sweden. "We are talking about very high numbers of people."

In men, the cumulative incidence of heart attack was 10 percent in never-smokers and 21 percent in heavy smokers; in women 4 percent in never-smokers and 11 percent in heavy smokers, the study said.