Cigarette Smoking Cessation and Total and Cause-Specific Mortality: A 22-Year Follow-up Study Among US Male Physicians

Abstract

Since the 1950s, studies have linked cigarette smoking to total and cause-specific mortality. Few studies have comprehensively presented patterns of total and cause-specific mortality reduction on smoking cessation^1,2 or age at quitting³, comparing risks with both never and current smokers. We thus assessed the relationship of time since quitting and age at smoking cessation with total and cause-specific mortality of major noncommunicable diseases among 19 705 US male physicians.