Smoking costs time and money

Young smokers are admitted to hospital more often

Young smokers take more time off work - because of their habit - than their non-smoking peers.

The US research comes as another study suggests Britain could save £1.14bn over 10 years if a tougher policy was adopted against smokers.

The savings could be achieved if Britain followed California's aim of cutting the number of smokers by 17% by 2010.

Government targets are to cut smoking rates among adults by 4% to 24% by 2010 which, researchers say, will save £524m.

Treating smoking related illnesses - such as heart disease and strokes - is one of the biggest costs for the NHS.

The American study of young smokers in the US Army found male smokers are the most likely to be off work, and to have to be hospitalised

Women smokers are also more at risk than their non smoking counterparts.

More absences

The researchers, led by Major Anthony Robbins, of Brooks Air Force Base in Texas, monitored 88,000 men and women in the US Army, with an average age of 28, over two years.

Male smokers were more 60% likely to take time off work, and they were 7% more likely to take time off because of injuries.

Female smokers were 15% more likely to take time off, and 54% more likely to have to take time off because of injury.

More than 14% of lost workdays for men, and 3% of lost workdays for women could be directly linked to smoking.

The risk of being admitted to hospital, for causes other than injury, rose by a third for male smokers.

For women the increased risk of being admitted to hospital for reasons other than pregnancy and injury was 25%.

Smoking could be directly implicated in 7.5% and 5% of hospital admissions.

Early effects

The research authors said: "It is remarkable that a single risk factor could account for such a large proportion of hospitalisations and lost workdays, particularly over such a short period of observation."

Amanda Sandford, research manager for ASH, said: "It seems quite logical when you think about it that smokers are more likely to cost industry more because they are more likely to get minor illnesses.

If you have two candidates - a smoker and a non-smoker - and you have read that smokers take more time off, you might go for the non-smoker."

Dr Sean Harvey
British Thoracic Society

"Most people think about smoking-related diseases as things like lung cancer, things which you get when you're older.

"But we're seeing more and more signs now of younger people being affected,"

Dr Sean Harvey, lung specialist and spokesman for the British Thoracic Society, said: "This does show there can be problems early on."

And he speculated it could affect smokers' employment prospects. "If you have two candidates - a smoker and a non-smoker - and you have read that smokers take more time off, you might go for the non-smoker."

Dr Bhash Naidoo, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said his finding that the NHS could save over one billion pounds came from health data on how stronger anti-smoking policies would affect Britain.

"This work shows that the savings made through moderate success in cessation programmes are in themselves significant, cumulative and immediate, not just in terms of mortality and morbidity, but on the utilisation of scare healthcare resources."

Both pieces of research are published in Tobacco Control journal.