Q: My husband has been smoking all his life. He is 65. He has chronic bronchitis but refuses to change. He knows the risks of heart disease and lung cancer but it doesn’t make any difference. Is there anything you can add that may make him change his mind?
A: According to a recent Canadian survey, it is difficult to make older people change their lifestyle. The survey included 17,354 Canadian adults older than 60. A substantial proportion of older adults lead relatively inactive lives and do not go often enough for routine visits to the doctor or get regular screening tests for such things as prostate cancer.
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Almost two-thirds of these people had made no changes to improve their health and even believed that no changes were needed. This shows your husband is far from being alone with this attitude. I expect he rationalizes that at his age the damage is already done, or that he just likes cigarettes so much that his is willing to sacrifice his health for them.
The British Medical Journal recently published an article on this subject. Researchers Richard Doll and Bradford Hill have been tracking the same research subjects for the last 50 years.
The first part of the study was published in 1954 and confirmed that the main tobacco-related causes of death were lung cancer, heart disease, cancers of the mouth, throat and esophagus, as well as respiratory diseases such as obstructive pulmonary disease or chronic bronchitis.
In the group of men born in the 1920s, two-thirds of those who had not stopped smoking were killed by tobacco. Researchers also found that cigarette smokers died about 10 years sooner than non-smokers. What makes this difference even more important is that medical science has learned better treatment methods for other diseases not linked to smoking, but has not made as much headway with the tobacco-related illnesses.
At last count, only 22 percent of Canadians smoke, and the number is dropping daily.
Despite all the medical evidence in favour of quitting smoking, the main reasons people stop are financial, and pressure from family and friends. The British researchers surmised that high rates of smoking in the group of men born in the 1920s could be related to the Second World War when soldiers were given access to cheap cigarettes.
Clare Rowson is a medical doctor with a practice near Belleville, Ont. Her columns are intended for general information only. Individuals are encouraged to also seek the advice of their own doctor regarding medical questions and treatments.
