If you are a smoker, quitting is the single best thing you can do to lower the probability that you will develop a disorder such as cardiovascular disease or cancer.
The health benefits you would enjoy if you quit smoking far surpass those you could hope to gain from improving your diet, getting regular exercise or achieving an ideal weight. And the really good news is that the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, cancer, or some other ailment falls away sharply soon after stopping.
In a major study involving more than one million women in the UK1, it was found that stopping smoking before age 40 avoids more than 90% of the additional deaths caused by continuing to smoke, and stopping before age 30 avoids more than 97% of those additional deaths. Conversely, two-thirds of all deaths of smokers aged in their 50s, 60s, and 70s are caused by smoking. On average, smokers lose at least 10 years of lifespan compared to non-smokers.
Get Help to Quit Smoking
Quit smoking today, and not only will you start to enjoy the lower health risks that non-smokers enjoy, but you will reap other rewards as well, including feeling so much better in yourself and having more energy to enjoy the things you like doing in life.
Lower Premiums
An added benefit in quitting smoking is the big effect it will have on your insurance premiums. After you have quit smoking for 12 months, all you need do is submit a Non-Smoker Declaration PDF and your premiums will be reduced to non-smoker rates. The reduction can be substantial. For example, if you are a 40 year old male with $500,000 in life cover, and you have quit smoking for at least 12 months, your premium reduction will be more than 50%.
Footnotes
- Pirie, K, Peto, R et al, 27 October 2012. The 21st Century Hazards of Smoking and Benefits of Stopping: a Prospective Study of One Million Women in the UK, 2012. The Lancet: Philadelphia, USA.