Good News for Exercising Smokers

Doug Skrecky (oberon@vcn.bc.ca)
Tue, 24 Feb 1998 00:31:53 -0800 (PST)


"Physical Fitness as a Predictor of Mortality Among Healthy, Middle-Aged
Norwegian Men"
New England Journal of Medicine 328(8): 533-537 1993

Here's some good news for smokers. High physical fitness can reverse
most of the adverse effects of smoking on all causes of mortality. The
following table is from the above research report.

Age-Adjusted All Causes of Mortality
Smoking Status Fitness Quartile
1 (lowest) 2 3 4 (highest)
________________________________________________________
never smoked 0.87 0.63 0.48 0.40
former smokers 0.81 0.66 0.62 0.37
1-9 cigarettes/day 1.10 1.14 1.10 0.52
>9 cigarettes/day 1.37 1.19 1.61 0.65