If you are a smoker, quitting should be your New Year's resolution because a recent study has found that on average, a single cigarette takes around 20 minutes off a person's life. The study by researchers at the University College London found that a typical pack of 20 cigarettes can shorten the smoker's life by nearly seven hours. The analysis published in the Journal of Addiction claimed that a single cigarette can take 17 minutes from a man's life and 22 minutes from a woman's life.

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As per the analysis, if a person smokes 10 cigarettes a day and quits on January 1, they could prevent the loss of a full day of life by January 8. If they follow this routine for the whole year, by December 2025, they can save 50 days from their lives. 

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Dr Sarah Jackson, a principal research fellow at UCL’s alcohol and tobacco research group, told The Guardian, “People generally know that smoking is harmful but tend to underestimate just how much." 

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“On average, smokers who don’t quit lose around a decade of life. That’s 10 years of precious time, life moments, and milestones with loved ones,” she further added. 

Smoking is one of the world’s leading preventable causes of disease and death. It kills up to two-thirds of long-term smokers. 

“Some people might think they don’t mind missing out on a few years of life, given that old age is often marked by chronic illness or disability. But smoking doesn’t cut short the unhealthy period at the end of life,” Jackson further added in her statement. 

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“It primarily eats into the relatively healthy years in midlife, bringing forward the onset of ill health. This means a 60-year-old smoker will typically have the health profile of a 70-year-old non-smoker," she told the British news agency. 

While there are people who live a long life even when they are long-term smokers, some develop smoking-related issues quite early in their lives and even lose them by the 40s. The variation differs as per the smoking habits, type of cigarette, the number of puffs taken, and how deeply the smoker inhales. 

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“Stopping smoking at every age is beneficial, but the sooner smokers get off this escalator of death, the longer and healthier they can expect their lives to be,” the published report said. 

(With inputs from agencies)