Researchers at the University College London explored how much of a person's life can be shortened by smoking. "[It] works out to be almost seven hours of life lost per pack," says the study's lead author.
Look into survivorship bias. The only 90 year old smokers you see are of course the ones that survived.
The statistic is an average. The 30 year old non-smoker being killed in an accident is an outlier exactly the same as the 90 year old that still smokes on the way to their grave. You might not lose anything because you die before you get lung cancer or you lose much more because you develop it at 40 years old, but on average a smoker loses 20 min per cigarette.
That’s how these statistics usually work:
(life expectancy of non-smokers - life expectancy of smokers) / # cigarettes an average smoker smokes in their lifetime
Obviously, it’s not literally like “that one cigarette ends your life 20 minutes earlier”.
Yeah it’s more like each cigarette is a bullet in an incredibly large barreled revolver that’s firing at you occasionally. But it’s also not the only thing loading it. Some people will survive by chance and a lot won’t. Clean living will increase the odds you live long and it’ll increase the odds you’re healthy while alive. But there are enough people that we have plenry of pediatric oncologists and plenty of 90 year old smokers. And even the 90 year olds that don’t smoke are outliers
Usually the exception. For every one of them that lasts till 90 there’s a dozen more dead by 70 via lung cancer, heart disease, or other truly horrifically painful way to die.
What about the people from ww2 era that drink whiskey and smoke cigars daily and live to be 90?
Look into survivorship bias. The only 90 year old smokers you see are of course the ones that survived.
The statistic is an average. The 30 year old non-smoker being killed in an accident is an outlier exactly the same as the 90 year old that still smokes on the way to their grave. You might not lose anything because you die before you get lung cancer or you lose much more because you develop it at 40 years old, but on average a smoker loses 20 min per cigarette.
That’s how these statistics usually work:
(life expectancy of non-smokers - life expectancy of smokers) / # cigarettes an average smoker smokes in their lifetime
Obviously, it’s not literally like “that one cigarette ends your life 20 minutes earlier”.
Yeah it’s more like each cigarette is a bullet in an incredibly large barreled revolver that’s firing at you occasionally. But it’s also not the only thing loading it. Some people will survive by chance and a lot won’t. Clean living will increase the odds you live long and it’ll increase the odds you’re healthy while alive. But there are enough people that we have plenry of pediatric oncologists and plenty of 90 year old smokers. And even the 90 year olds that don’t smoke are outliers
Usually the exception. For every one of them that lasts till 90 there’s a dozen more dead by 70 via lung cancer, heart disease, or other truly horrifically painful way to die.