Just one cigarette a day is ‘almost as dangerous as 20 – hiking your heart attack and stroke risk by 40%’
Experts claim shock findings show the importance of quitting the habit completely, rather than simply cutting back
SMOKING just one cigarette a day is almost as bad for your health as puffing a whole pack of 20, experts warn.
Their shock findings show just how important it is to ditch the killer habit completely, rather than simply cutting back.
They analysed 141 previous studies to see how smoking one, five or 20 fags a day affects the likelihood of heart disease and stroke.
Those with a 20-a-day habit are roughly twice as likely to suffer as people who have never smoked.
The academics, from University College London, thought one cigarette would carry one twentieth – or 5 per cent – of the risk of puffing on 20.
But they found men who smoke one a day still have 46 per cent of the increased risk of heart disease and 41 per cent of the risk of stroke, compared with somebody who smokes 20.
The figures were 32 per cent and 34 per cent for women.
Around 16 per cent of adults in England smoke, with the habit causing 79,000 deaths a year – mostly as a result of heart disease.
National health surveys show 26 per cent of these smokers want to cut down but are not trying to stop completely.
Some 24 per cent of smokers puff between one and five fags a day.
Study leader Professor Allan Hackshaw said: “We have shown that a large proportion of the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke comes from smoking only a couple of cigarettes each day.
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“This probably comes as a surprise to many people.
"But there are also biological mechanisms that help explain the unexpectedly high risk associated with a low level of smoking.
“No safe level of smoking exists for cardiovascular disease.
“Smokers should quit instead of cutting down, using appropriate cessation aids if needed, to significantly reduce their risk of these two common major disorders.”
The findings are published in the British Medical Journal.