People say smoking one cigarette takes 11 minutes off your life (approximately). If you stop smoking early enough does this cancel this out or is the damage already done?
In: Biology
Cancer is mostly a numbers game. And the time is mostly based on averaging out life expectancy vs number of cigarettes smoked. (I have not verified the accuracy of this number though) If you get lung cancer at a young age it’s more like every cigarette you smoked took hours off your life rather than minutes. But averaged out over everyone it comes down to that 11 minutes.
With that in mind there is still damage that can be undone. Quiting smoking will reduce your chances of cancer by about %40 after 5 years, which is similar to saying 40% of the damage can be canceled out. It’s just a little hard to phrase because we’re talking about risk percent, not actual physical body damage.
But man let me tell you, if you do quit the quality of life goes way up. You’ll feel like you’ve got twice the endurance in a few weeks.
Statistics does show that some of the damage is already done but not all. So quiting smoking for good does improve your life expectancy. There is still permanent damage that will reduce the life quality and some symptoms like for example cancer may not appear for some time after it first develops. But stopping smoking does give your body a chance to heal up the damaged areas and might even reverse some of the damage.
It depends on individual variability. Some people develop lung cancer after years of smoking. Some don’t.
If you smoke frequently for a long time, the damage has already been done.
It takes about 15 years after quitting for lungs to return to fully normal physiology and capacity (assuming you were a heavy smoker). That is if you haven’t developed cancerous cells before that.
That being said, my dad was a heavy smoker (more than a pack a day), then he quit. He had always been relatively sporty but started swimming every morning, . He now has a perfectly healthy heart and lungs, increased his lung capacity to 150%, and his doctor now says he has one of the healthiest cardiopulmonary systems he’s seen in a patient his age (60+). He hasn’t smoked in about 25 years. He watches his diet and has perfect blood values especially considering the family history of high cholesterol and lung cancer.
So all is not lost! Good luck on your quitting journey!
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