A landmark study published this week indicates that smoking can cut a decade off your life, but quitting before age 35 may give it back.

The research also revealed that the death rate for current smokers is three times higher than those who never smoked. Most of these smoking-related deaths were due to cancer, heart disease, stroke and respiratory diseases.

Another troubling trend confirmed in the study was the fact that women’s death rates from smoking, which had lagged behind men for decades, now match men’s.

Benefits for Non-Smokers, Quitters

On the flip side, non-smokers are twice as likely to live to age 80 compared to smokers.

The good news in this study is that the sooner you quit, the more years you may get back. According to the data, here’s how quitting can extend your life compared to someone who keeps smoking:

• adult smokers who quit at ages 25 to 34 may get up to 10 years back
• quitting by ages 35 to 44 could give you nine years more
• if you quit by ages 45 to 54 you may gain six years back
• stop smoking by age 64 and you could add four years to your life

Solid Research

The size and scope of this study make the results particularly impactful. American, Canadian and British scientists analyzed data on the smoking status of nearly 217,000 adults between 1997 and 2004.

Prior smoking studies are now decades old or didn’t represent the entire population. Since smoking among women didn’t peak until the 1980s, this research is the first to really capture the true impact of smoking among men and women.

Deadly Impact

Despite a decline in the overall smoking rate, which is now at 19.3% among adults, there are still 45.3 million smokers in this country and 443,000 deaths attributed to smoking each year.

When you consider that these figures don’t take into account the number of people exposed to second- and third-hand smoke, the deadly impact of smoking may be significantly underestimated.

Sources:

Medline / HealthDay

Los Angeles Times

New data on prostate cancer mortality rates is good information for men to know, but it may not make decisions about treatment any easier. Furthermore, the new research probably won’t end the longstanding debate in the medical community questioning the use of PSA screening for the cancer or whether or not to even treat the disease in some men.

According to the new study, if you have prostate cancer you have about an 11% chance that you’ll die from it. The odds are more likely that’s you’ll die of something else--like cardiovascular disease.

The study authors say their research reinforces the idea that the key to longevity is embracing an overall healthy lifestyle--like eating a balanced diet, managing your weight, getting regular exercise, and not smoking.

Study Details

The study used data from the U.S. Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program and the Swedish Cancer and Cause of Death registries to analyze the causes of death among more than 700,000 men. The U.S. data was for 1973-2008 and the Swedish data covered 1961-2008.

• Over these periods, 52% of the Swedish men with prostate cancer died and 30% of American men with prostate cancer in the study.
• Of these deaths, only 35% of the Swedish men died directly from prostate cancer and only 16% of American men died from the disease itself, the investigators found.
• As the study continued, fewer men died from prostate cancer while deaths from heart disease remained the same.
• By the last five years of the study, 29% of Swedish men with prostate cancer died from it as did 11% of American men, the researchers calculated.
• Deaths from prostate cancer varied by age and year of diagnosis. The most deaths were among older men and among men diagnosed before screening for PSA began, they added.

Clinical Implications

When doctors were asked to comment on the study findings, opinions varied widely. Some believe the study is justification for screening only high-risk men for prostate cancer, which includes African-American men and men with a family history of prostate cancer. Others like Dr. Durado Brooks, director of prostate and colon cancer at the American Cancer Society, argue against PSA screening saying that it too often "leads down the path of unnecessary treatment."

"Men should understand that not every prostate cancer needs to be found and every prostate cancer that's found does not necessarily need to be treated," he said.

With such diverse opinions in the medical community, it’s easy to see why men need all the information available to make a decision about their health. There just isn’t a clear-cut answer on this issue.

Source:

Health Day

It's natural. You're the Dad of an active young daughter who stayed up late three nights in a row working on that crunch project, and feeling very sleep-deprived by the end of it. In your head, you promise to make up for it by sleeping in over the weekend.

That is, until Saturday morning and said young daughter jumps into your bed wanting breakfast. And brings the slobbering, four-legged 65-pound weapon of mass destruction, named Petunia, with her. Sounds like an all-too-typical scenario played out in homes all across the world, and a warm, fuzzy one at that.

But what happens when that sleep deprivation worsens over time and, coupled with poor health habits, evolves into insomnia once you reach boomerhood? Men may pay a huge price for burning the midnight oil over the long haul, according to a Penn State College of Medicine study.

After tracking the health of 1,000 women (average age 47) and 741 men (average age 50), following a comprehensive sleep study, for 10 and 14 years, respectively, 14 percent of patients (248) had died. Here's the real kicker: Forty-two percent more men died over the course of the study than did women, translating to a 51.1 percent mortality rate among male insomniacs who slept less than six hours a night. Even worse, throw hypertension or diabetes into the mix, and the mortality risks associated with insomnia explode.

If any of this sounds vaguely familiar and disturbing to you, check out our checklist of helpful sleep tips we posted last year, and go see your doctor soon.

Sleep, Vol. 33, No. 9, pp. 1159-1164, September 1, 2010

EurekAlert September 1, 2010

For another year, cancer rates in America appear to be in decline, according to Cancer Statistics 2010, the latest annual deluge of numbers amassed every summer by the American Cancer Society (ACS).

While the general consensus is positive -- cancer-related mortality rates have declined by an estimated 767,000 Americans over the past two decades -- the ACS predicts some 1.5 million new cases will be diagnosed along with almost 570,000 cancer-related deaths this year. That's a very slight increase, compared to last year's 1.48 million new cases and 562,000 deaths.

Additionally, even though cancer rates among women are falling, as are those for men, it's happening a bit more slowly among the fairer sex, based on historical data. For example, the incidence of cancer among men fell 1.3 percent from 2000-06, but only 0.5 percent among women (albeit over a longer time frame from 1998-2006). And, after a 6 percent decrease in the incidence of breast cancer among women in 2002-03, rates from 2003-06 have remained flat.

Also, the news is worse for African-Americans. The mortality rate among black men and women is far greater, 34 and 17 percent respectively, than that of their white counterparts.

Fortunately, survival rates are much better among children with cancer than they were 35 years ago. Cancer survival rates among children have increased significantly from 58 percent in 1975-77 to 81 percent for kids diagnosed from 1999-2005.

Because the news is more of a mixed bag, depending on where you're looking for it, you can't stop being vigilant about all the variables that may contribute in a positive or negative way to your cancer risks. Which reminds me to remind you that making lifestyle changes is a great place to start.

CA, A Cancer Journal for Clinicians July 7, 2010 Free Full Text Study

ScienceDaily July 7, 2010

USA Today July 8, 2010