Smoking before age 18 linked to respiratory symptoms in age 20: study

Research has long shown a link between smoking and lung disease. Adding to the deeper understanding of this connection, a recent study examined how starting the habit before age 18 affects respiratory health in early adulthood.

Teenage adults who started smoking in their teens are more likely to experience symptoms like wheezing and phlegm in their 20s, according to study results presented at the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Congress in Vienna, Austria. The more cigarettes they smoked, the greater their risk of developing these breathing problems.

The results were based on an assessment of 3,430 children from northern Sweden who were asked to complete surveys every year from age 8 to age 19, and again after age 28.

The researchers noted that 22% of the participants smoked daily at some point during the study. Of those who smoked, 29% started at age 15 or younger, 35% started at age 16 or 17, and 35% started at age 18 or older.

After taking into account factors such as family history of asthma and childhood exposure to smoking, the study found that smoking more cigarettes increased the risk of developing respiratory symptoms at age 28. Each raise in “pack-year” was associated with about a 10% higher risk compared with nonsmokers. A pack-year is equivalent to smoking one pack of 20 cigarettes a day for a year.

“Starting smoking before age 18 increased the risk of respiratory symptoms at age 28 by about 80% compared with nonsmokers. Those who started smoking at age 18 or later had about a 50% higher risk than nonsmokers,” press release it was stated.

“In our study, we found that smokers were very likely to start smoking before the age of 18, and those who started early were more likely to have breathing problems, especially wheezing and phlegm. These symptoms were also more common the more cigarettes people smoked,” said Dr. Linnea Hedman, assistant professor of epidemiology and public health at Umeå University in Sweden.

Dr. Hedman explains that this may be because the younger population that starts smoking early may continue smoking for a longer period of time and therefore experience more symptoms. It may also be because their lungs are still developing and more susceptible to damage.

The study’s findings show how quickly the harmful effects of smoking impact on newborn people’s lives, underlining the urgent need to curb the habit.

“This study shows that it doesn’t necessarily take decades for respiratory symptoms from smoking to appear; we can already see a significant association in newborn adulthood,” Dr. Hedman said.