A Biologic Cost of Smoking

Abstract

The mortality and survival of 34,217 Seventh-day Adventists (SDAs) from 1960 to 1962 has been subjected to a life table analysis and compared to similar data for the simultaneous California population. The preferential survival experience and life expectancy of the SDAs is of a very high order—considering the ages (35 and above) to which the analysis was limited. The life expectancy advantage of SDAs at age 35 and over exceed present California life expectancies by an amount greater than that gained in the US population during the past 40 or more years. On the basis of prior detailed studies of the mortality experience of SDAs, we postulate that the great preponderance of this preferential life expectancy is due to the SDA practice of abstinence from the use of tobacco. We reason, inversely, that one of the important, and recently measurable, biologic costs of cigarette smoking is a substantial reduction in life expectancy, notably among US men.