People who quit smoking before the age of 40 may live as long as people who never smoked at all. Researchers found a smoker loses roughly 10 years of life to the habit but regained most of that time if they quit before 40. The benefit is increased the sooner before 40 you quit.
About 46.6 million U.S. adults smoke cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Annually about 443,000 people die from smoking-related illnesses and another 8.6 million people live with a smoking-related disease.