Light cigarettes can’t reduce the smokers’ health risks

According to a study people who smoke low-tar and low-nicotine, or light cigarettes thinking they will reduce their health risks, but these smokers are less likely to kick the habit. Light cigarettes were first introduced to the U.S. market in the late 1960s and now account for almost 90 percent of the cigarettes sold in the United States.

Researchers showed that smokers who use light cigarettes increase their lifetime risk of a variety of smoking-related diseases.

The analysis, conducted by Hilary Tindle, assistant professor of medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, found that of 12,285 self-reported smokers, those who used light cigarettes were about 50 percent less likely to quit smoking than those who smoked non-light cigarettes.

Smoking light cigarettes was associated with reduced odds of quitting for all age groups, but this effect increased with progressing age, peaking in adults’ age 65 years old and older, was 76 percent less likely to quit than their counterparts who smoked non-light cigarettes.

Dr. Tindle and her collaborators found that more than a third 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.

These findings are really disturbing because more than 30 million U.S. adult smokers think that they can reduce their smoking-related health risks by using light cigarettes but they don’t know who, in fact, actually may be increasing such risks.

Dr. Tindle said: "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."

A number of studies have denied the notion that they have less tar and nicotine than regular cigarettes, instead suggesting that the amounts of tar and nicotine are comparable.

Moreover, researchers have suggested that light cigarette smokers experience little or no long-term reduction in their risk of tobacco-related disease compared to smokers of regular cigarettes.