Greater risks of early death lingers upon women who smoke and drink heavily than their male counterparts, says a recent study.
This study was substantiated by data collated from a Europe wide survey of almost 380,000 people aged 40 and older. According to the study, women who drank heavily were effected more than their male friends who drank the same amount by facing disproportional risk to their health and their lifespan.
Followed over an average period of almost 12 years, 26,411 participants died during the course of the study off the group. This was reported by the French researchers and the study was published in the journal of Bulletin epidemiologique hebdomadaire(BEH).
Risk Levels:
Considering the risk scale, placing the non-smokers at level “1”, the risk of death was almost 1.38 for an average smoker(men) of 15 cigarettes a day, it rose to 1.86 for those who smoked 16-26 cigarettes on an average and subsequently kept rising to almost 2.44 for smokers who smoked more.
The risk levels amongst women in the group were 1.32, 2.04 and 2.44 respectively considering the same amount of cigarettes smoked, confirmed the study.
The figures of the risk levels were completely different when alcohol was also consumed by the participants.
Men who smoked an average of more than 26 cigarettes and drank almost 30 grams of alcohol per day, the risk scale was 2.38 compared to those who never drank and whose alcohol level never exceeded 5 gms per day.
However the risk scales among women was by far greater compared to the equivalent risk levels among men, being a whopping 3.88.
According to the research study, the authors stated, “Women who consume excessive amounts of alcohol have a significantly higher risk from tobacco use than those who consume little or no alcohol,”.
Though the exact reasons of this staggering difference was not elaborated in the study, the study thus confirmed that the mortality rates of smokers was 1.5 times more than non smokers.
