We already know how long it takes from quitting smoking to reducing the risk of cancer.

Even if you have been smoking for a long time, Quitting smoking has benefits amazing ones that begin even the moment you quit this habit. The first, obviously, is reducing the risk of death from tobacco-related diseases. Every year, around 63,000 people in Spain die from related causes, ranging from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to heart disease, stroke or cancer.

Quitting smoking is not easy, and so you might think that “well, the damage has already been done.” But, as research shows, benefits of quitting tobacco use They are varied and some seem fast. For example, heart rate and breathing improve within hours of quitting smoking, blood oxide levels improve within days, and lung function and breathing improve within weeks. The risk of heart attack and stroke is significantly reduced after two years. Which the longer it takes, the less likely you are to get cancer.

In this sense, a new study published online in a scientific journal The JAMA Network is opennotes that cancer risk remains negligible will increase over the next 10 years smoking cessation versus continued smoking. It then begins to decline over time: after 15 years or more, the risk is 50% less than that associated with continued smoking.

Dr. Eunjung Park of the Graduate School of Cancer Science and Policy at the Goyang National Cancer Center, South Korea, and colleagues examined the temporal evolution of cancer risk as a function of time since smoking cessation through a retrospective cohort study that did not include any other study. how nearly 3 million Koreans aged 30 and older.

What types of cancer reduce your risk when you quit smoking?

The researchers confirmed 196,829 cancer cases during an average follow-up period of 13.4 years. Smokers who quit completely had a lower risk of developing cancer than regular smokers. The hazard ratios were 0.83 for cancer overall and 0.58, 0.73, 0.86, and 0.80 for cancer overall. lungs, liver, stomach and colorectumrespectively.

Risk Lung cancer decreased three years earlier than other cancers with smoking cessation, and there was a greater relative reduction. In addition, the age at which a person quits smoking plays a role: a greater reduction in lung cancer risk was observed when quitting before age 50 years compared with ages 50 years or older (hazard ratio 0.43 and 0.61, respectively).

“Our results highlight the importance of promoting smoking cessationprovide adequate support and resources for sustainable smoking cessation, and encourage early smoking cessation to reduce cancer risk,” the authors conclude.