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?

Question

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

Answer 1

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.