People who smoke are at a considerable risk of mortality, regardless of age, according to a press release published Sunday.
The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) confirmed that until recently, thorough epidemiological studies had not been conducted to determine the relationship between smoking in older generations and mortality risks.
However, the researchers claimed that individuals who survive to 70 years of age are still at risk and will eventually lose many years of their lives.
Research scientists Dr. Jonathan Emberson and Dr. Robert Clark tracked the health and lifestyle of elderly males between the age of 66 and 97.
The researchers chose 7,000 participants from a population of subjects that took part in the Whitehall study of civil servants in London.
The study calculated what it classified as hazardous ratios for each member of the studied population and factored into the equation the degree to which smoking impacted a subject's mortality.
Results showed that overall, more than 70% of the participants died during the study which lasted 15 years, representing a figure of 5,000 men.
The researchers found a hazard ration of 1.5 for smokers, which denotes a 50% higher death rate in smokers compared to their non-smoking counterparts.
