Quit smoking and your risk of lung cancer might drop in 5 years

The fact that lung cancer risk drops relatively quickly after quitting smoking, compared to continuing smoking, gives new motivation to quit.

New US research has found that quitting smoking can substantially reduce the risk of lung cancer within five years, although it also warns that ex-smokers still have a greater risk of the disease even years later.

Carried out by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, the study used data taken from the landmark Framingham Heart Study, which records the health information of residents in Framingham, Massachusetts, to look at high blood pressure and high cholesterol as key risk factors for cardiovascular disease, as well as tracking cancer outcomes.