Miller wrote:
Obama was the smoker, not McCain.
Wrong again, Miller. When are you ever going to get your "facts" right?
The sooner you quit, the better it is
By Jeremy Manier | Chicago Tribune reporter
July 8, 2008
Both of this year's presidential candidates say they are ex-smokers, but recent research suggests that they may face increased health risks from cigarettes for years to come.
Some of the damage that cigarettes inflict on the body subsides quickly, halving the risk of heart disease and stroke within five years after a smoker quits. But the effect of smoking on risks of cancer and other diseases can persist for decades, experts say.
Even Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), 71, who quit smoking in 1980, still faces some increased risk of cancer from smoking two packs a day for 25 years, studies suggest. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), 46, who says he has struggled to stay off cigarettes since quitting last year, may have less long-term risk because he smoked fewer cigarettes per day.
Better to quit young
A major message of the research is that people who quit at a young age are far better off than those who put it off until later. Obama and McCain, both of whom waited until their mid-40s to quit, would have been measurably better off if they had stopped a decade sooner, experts said.
"If you quit by age 35, by the time you're 45 you look pretty much like a never-smoker in most of our profiles of risk," said Terry Pechacek, associate director for science at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's office on smoking and health.
