STOCKHOLM, Sweden, May 11, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- A 30-year study of 54,000
men and women in Norway found smoking had a tremendous impact on mortality and
cardiovascular disease.
Haakon Meyer of the University of Oslo and Norwegian Institute of Public Health
said the follow-up study began in 1974 with an invitation to every middle-age
man and woman -- ages 35-49 -- living in three counties of Norway to take part
in a basic cardiovascular screening examination. Ninety-one percent participated
in the baseline screening.
From the original 54,075 participants, 13,103 died by the time of follow-up. Of
these, 45 percent of the heavy-smoking men had died during the 30 years,
compared to 18 percent of those who never-smoked.
Thirty-three percent of the heavy-smoking women had died, but 13 percent of the
never-smokers died.
"These results show what a tremendous impact smoking has on mortality," Meyer
told the EuroPRevent 2009 in Stockholm, Sweden. "We are talking about very high
numbers of people."
In men, the cumulative incidence of heart attack was 10 percent in never-smokers
and 21 percent in heavy smokers; in women 4 percent in never-smokers and 11
percent in heavy smokers, the study said.
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