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Does weight gain after smoking cessation attenuate some of the benefit of quitting? To find out, researchers used data from about 160,000 U.S. health professionals who participated in prospective health surveys that extended over several decades.
During mean follow-up of 20 years, new diagnoses of diabetes were significantly more likely among smokers who quit than among those who continued smoking. This higher incidence of diabetes was seen mainly in quitters whose weight gain was >5 kg, and diabetes incidence peaked at 5 to 7 years after quitting. However, participants who quit smoking had lower cardiovascular-related and all-cause mortality during follow-up than did those who continued to smoke, and this lower mortality among quitters was …