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Smoking is well known to accelerate overall mortality. In an analysis of 22 years of follow-up in the Nurses’ Health Study, investigators quantified risks associated with smoking — and the benefits of cessation — in women. The analysis included 12,483 deaths from all causes among the 104,519 women who completed biennial questionnaires from 1980 to 2004.
At baseline, 28% of participants were current smokers, 26% were past smokers, and 46% were never-smokers. By 2002, only 8% of living participants reported currently smoking. Compared with never-smokers, current smokers were at higher risk for death from all major causes (hazard ratio, 2.81; 95% confidence interval, 2.68–2.95), with significant dose-response associations for all causes except …