Retirement is ‘best time to try to give up smoking’

Going into retirement is one of the best times to try to give up smoking, new research has revealed ahead of No Smoking Day.

Researchers at the Peninsula Medical School in south-west England made the discovery after studying 1,712 smokers aged 50 and over during a six-year period.

The results showed that 42.5 per cent of those who had recently retired had quit smoking compared with 29.3 per cent of those in employment and 30.2 for those who were already retired.

Dr Iain Lang said the point of retirement may be one of the easiest times to quit smoking as it is “one of the great transitions in life”, making it easier for people to make significant changes in other areas of their lives.

“Retirement is a point of life at which people have a whole range of opportunities to do things they haven’t previously felt able to do,” he added.

“We are excited at the possibility that what we have seen with smoking may also apply to other aspects of lifestyle, like eating more healthily and doing more exercise.

“That would be a great result not just for the health of the individual but also because it would relieve some of the pressure placed upon the NHS by an ageing population.”