(March 6, 2008 - Insidermedicine) Understanding the impact of smoking on the lungs in terms of lung age is a greater incentive to stop smoking, according to research published in the British Medical Journal.

Here are some compelling reasons to quit smoking:

•    It lowers your life expectancy by an average of seven to eight years.

•    It increases your risk of lung and other cancers, heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, and other diseases.

•    It affects your appearance: smokers have paler skin and more wrinkles.

Researchers from Hertfordshire, England tested the lung functioning of more than 500 smokers over the age of 35 using spirometry, which measures the volume and rate at which a patient exhales air from the lungs. They then randomly divided the patients into one of two groups. The first group was given the results of their lung function tests and explained what they mean in terms of lung age, that is, the age of the average healthy person with similar lung function to theirs. They were also given a diagram showing how smoking ages the lungs and told that quitting would slow the deterioration. The second group of patients only received information on their lung functioning, without having it linked to lung age.

After one year, 14% of those who received information about the age of their lungs had quit smoking, compared with only 6% in the other group, meaning that the information on lung age essentially doubled the quitting rate. Interestingly, those with poorer results on their lung function tests were no more likely to quit smoking than those with more favorable results.

Based on these findings, the authors conclude that teaching patients about the age of their lungs provides more of an incentive to quit than simply telling them how well their lungs are functioning.

For Insidermedicine in Depth, I'm Dr. Susan Sharma.