Washington: People who enjoy puffing "light" cigarettes, assuming that low nicotine usage would not cause any major harm to their health could be thinking wrong.
They are less likely to quit the habit and continue smoking, reveals a recent research carried out by University of Pittsburgh and Harvard University.
The study published online by the American Journal of Public Health, suggests that light cigarettes smokers because of their false perception of reduced health risks, increase their lifetime risk of a variety of smoking-related diseases.
The study was conducted by assistant professor of medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Dr Hilary Tindle, MD, MPH.
The study found out that of 12,285 self-reported smokers, those who used light cigarettes were about 50 per cent less likely to quit smoking than those who smoked non-light cigarettes.
While smoking light cigarettes was associated with reduced odds of quitting for all age groups, the findings revealed that this effect increased with progressing age.
Adults aged 65 and older were 76 per cent less likely to quit than their counterparts who smoked non-light cigarettes.
"Even though smokers may hope to reduce their health risks by smoking lights, the results suggest they are doing just the opposite because they are significantly reducing their chances of quitting. Moreover, as they get older their chances of quitting become more and more diminished," Dr Tindle says.
Dr Tindle and her collaborators, who included Saul Shiffman, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, also found that more than nearly 37 per cent of the self-reported smokers said they used light cigarettes to reduce their health risks.
The majority of these light cigarette smokers were female, Caucasian and highly educated.
In the article, Dr Tindle and her coauthors suggest that physicians and other clinicians should warn their patients about light cigarettes during routine smoking cessation counseling.
They should warn them because research shows that smokers are more likely to show interest in quitting if they know that lights do not reduce health risks.
In addition, the authors suggest that there be disclosures on cigarette packs and warnings in advertisements whenever the term "light" or similarly misleading terms are used.
"Because smoking is such a major cause of death and disability in this country and worldwide, we believe that it is critical to give smokers accurate information on the potentially detrimental effects of the use of lights to reduce health risks and the potential impact on subsequent smoking cessation," Dr Tindle says.
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