If you quit smoking and gain weight, it may seem like you're trading one set of health problems for another. But a new US study finds you're still better off in the long run.
Compared with smokers, even the quitters who gained the most weight had at least a 50 per cent lower risk of dying prematurely from heart disease and other causes, the Harvard-led study found.
The study is impressive in its size and scope and should put to rest any myth that there are prohibitive weight-related health consequences to quitting cigarettes, said William Dietz, a public health expert at George Washington University.
"The paper makes pretty clear that your health improves, even if you gain weight," said Dietz, who was not involved in the research. "I don't think we knew that with the assurance that this paper provides."
The New England Journal of Medicine published the study on Wednesday.
The nicotine in cigarettes can suppress appetite and boost metabolism. Many smokers who quit and don't step up their exercise find they eat more and gain weight.
A lot of weight gain is a cause of the most common form of diabetes, a disease in which blood sugar levels are higher than normal.
Diabetes can lead to problems including blindness, nerve damage, heart and kidney disease and poor blood flow to the legs and feet.
Researchers tracked more than 170,000 men and women over roughly 20 years, looking at what they said in health questionnaires given every two years.
They checked which study participants quit smoking and followed whether they gained weight and developed diabetes, heart disease or other conditions.
Quitters saw their risk of diabetes increase by 22 per cent in the six years after they kicked the habit.
"Regardless of the amount of weight gain, quitters always have a lower risk of dying" prematurely, Qi Sun, one of the study's authors, said.
