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TUESDAY, Feb. 15 (HealthDay News) -- Intensive quit-smoking programs that include behavior changes and use of nicotine gum can add years to former smokers' lifespans, researchers report.
LHS tracked about 5,900 middle-aged smokers who had mild to moderately abnormal lung function, but were otherwise healthy at the start of the study. Some of the patients participants enrolled in a 10-week intensive smoking cessation program, while others did not.
Along with help in changing behaviors linked to smoking, and the use of nicotine gum, the cessation program included a continuing five-year maintenance program designed to help prevent smoking relapse among the participants.
After five years, about 22 percent of the people in the quit-smoking program were sustained quitters, with nearly 90 percent of that subgroup continuing to stay away from cigarettes by the 11-year mark. In contrast, only about 5 percent of the people not enrolled in the program were sustained quitters after five years.
The intervention paid off real dividends in terms of lifespan, the researchers found. After an average of 14.5 years, the death rate in the smoking cessation group was about 15 percent lower than the death rate in the usual care group, they report. Overall, sustained quitters had nearly half the overall death rate of people who continued to smoke.
The findings appear in the Feb. 15 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
"This study shows the substantial impact smoking-cessation programs can have on public health, even if small numbers of participants successfully quit," Dr.Gail Weinmann, director of the airway biology and disease program at the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), said in a prepared statement.
The Lung Health Study is supported by the NHLBI.
More information
The American Cancer Society has advice on how to quit smoking (www.cancer.org ).
-- Robert Preidt
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