Are you looking to quit smoking now that the new year is here? Then the statistics below – from a new article in The Lancet - may make you go for it.
A Decade
The graphs below illustrate how big the chance is for a 30-year-old to survive until a certain age, depending on wether they smoke or not:
What do the graphs show us? That non-smokers live on average a decade longer than smokers. The chance of reaching your 80th birthday is now good in the western world… unless you’re a smoker. Then you’ll probably die earlier.
Previous smokers who quit, according to the same article, dramatically improve their odds. They will live almost as long as people who never smoked.
Do you want to see your grandchildren grow up? Then dump the cigarettes.
The Taxation Route
The article also includes intriguing figures on what happens in countries applying a hefty penalty tax on cigarettes. Presumably, a similar tax on sugar would yield similar results:
The statistics below show what happened when France and South Africa in the early 1990′s began to increase the tax on cigarettes dramatically. The price gradually tripled… and smoking in the population suddenly plummeted.
A three-fold increase in price was in both countries followed by the smoking rate being cut to less than half. Which country will be the first to triple the price of soda?