
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 13, 1990                   TAG: 9005130074
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: D-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

SMOKING SAID TO CUT LIFE SPAN OF MALES MORE

Men who smoke cigarettes throughout their lives will die nearly 18 years earlier than men who never start, according to a new study of the smoking habits of all adults who lived and died in Erie, Pa., between 1972 and 1974.

The difference is far longer than most other estimates of the time smoking cuts off a man's life, and it is one of the first such attempts to catalogue the effects of smoking in an entire community over a specific time period. Earlier projections by the American Cancer Society and the Veterans Administration reported differences between seven and nine years in live expectancy between continuing smokers and non-smokers.

"The data from the present research indicate that a 30-year-old man who smokes will reduce his life expectancy, on average, by about one-fourth," wrote the authors of the study, published in the current issue of Contingencies, the journal of the American Academy of Actuaries. The report directly compared people who never start with those who never stop. Most other such studies attempt to blend in the millions who have smoked, but quit.

This population-based study shows a graphic and undeniable difference in life expectancy between lifelong smokers and those who never smoked. According to the report, the average 30-year-old man who smoked could expect to die at the age of 64. The 30-year-old who never started could expect to live to be 82.

by CNB