April 7 (UPI) —<\/span> Quitting smoking adds up to five years of life for a person with heart disease, an analysis presented Thursday during the European Society of Cardiology’s Preventive Cardiology 2022 scientific congress found.<\/p>\n This is comparable to the benefits these same people would receive by taking medications to lower levels of low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, which is known as “bad cholesterol,” the researchers said in a presentation during the meeting.\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n For adults age 45 years and older who still were smoking at least six months after suffering a heart attack and\/or undergoing stent implantation or bypass surgery, stopping the habit added 4.81 heart disease-free years to their lifespans, the data showed.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, taking two medications designed to lower bad cholesterol and an additional anti-inflammatory drug at the same time added 4.83 heart disease-free years to life, according to the researchers.\n<\/p>\n “The benefits of smoking cessation are even greater than we realized,” study co-author Dr. Tinka Van Trier said in a press release.<\/p>\n “Our study shows that kicking the habit appears to be as effective as taking three medications for preventing heart attacks and strokes in those with a prior heart attack or procedure to open blocked arteries,” said Van Trier, a cardiologist at Amsterdam University Medical Center in the Netherlands.\n<\/p>\n About 13% of adults age 18 years and older in the United States are regular smokers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.\n<\/p>\n The habit has been linked with nearly 500,000 deaths nationally each year, with many caused by heart disease, the agency estimates.<\/p>\n Many current and former smokers are treated with cholesterol-lowering medications as well as blood pressure-controlling drugs to prevent the onset of heart disease or limit its effects, according to the American Heart Association.<\/p>\n For this study, Van Trier and her colleagues used data from 989 patients age 45 years and older who were still smoking at least six months after having a heart attack and\/or undergoing stent implantation or bypass surgery.\n<\/p>\n The average age of the study participants was 60 years, and 23% were women, the researchers said.<\/p>\n Most of the participants had been prescribed standard preventive medications for heart disease, including antiplatelets, statins for cholesterol control and blood pressure-lowering drugs, according to the researchers.<\/p>\n The researchers estimated the gain in healthy years, or those without a heart attack or stroke, if participants quit smoking, they said.<\/p>\n They also calculated the gain in healthy years if participants continued smoking but took three additional drugs to prevent heart disease, including two cholesterol-lowering drugs and one anti-inflammatory.\n<\/p>\n “Smoking cessation remains a cornerstone of preventing heart attacks and strokes and improving overall health at any time, including after a heart attack and at any age,” Van Trier said.<\/p>\n “We know that cigarette smoking is responsible for 50% of all avoidable deaths in smokers, of which half are due to cardiovascular disease [and] giving up cigarettes after a heart attack is linked with improved survival compared with persistent smoking,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Quitting smoking can add to years to the lives of people with heart disease, according to a new study. File photo by underworld\/Shutterstock April 7 (UPI) — Quitting smoking adds up to five years of life for a person with heart disease, an analysis presented Thursday during the European Society of Cardiology’s Preventive Cardiology 2022 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1048822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[5045,1363,176,48,696,7214,5678,28,1151],"class_list":["post-1048821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-adds","tag-disease","tag-finds","tag-heart","tag-life","tag-quitting","tag-smoking","tag-study","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1048821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1048821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1048821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1048821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1048821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1048821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Quitting](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Quitting-smoking-adds-five-years-to-life-for-those-with-heart-disease-study-finds.jpg\" "\\"Quitting")
\n<\/div>\nQuitting smoking can add to years to the lives of people with heart disease, according to a new study. File photo by underworld\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n