Woman smoking (© Arman Zhenikeyev/Getty Images)

If sudden death isn't your thing, put down that one cigarette

12/13/2012

Winding down at the end of the day with a drink and a cigarette can double a woman's chances of sudden death — even if that drink is milk, according to a 30-year-long study of 101,018 U.S. nurses. Sorry, we're not talking about spontaneous showings of the Jean-Claude Van Damme film: Sudden death is when your heart simply quits. The good news is that only 315 sudden cardiac deaths were reported during the study. The bad news is that women who smoked even just one cigarette a day were twice as likely to succumb. Sounds like a pretty good reason to quit altogether, although it will take 20 smoke-free years for a smoker to return to a nonsmoker's low risk rate. [Source]

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