A study showed that older people who smoked less than 32 “pack years” — 3.2 packs (20 cigarettes per pack) a day for no more than 10 years or less than one pack a day for 30 years — and gave up smoking 15 or fewer years ago lowered their risks of developing heart failure or dying from heart failure, heart attacks and strokes to the same level as those who had never smoked. “It’s good news,” said Ali Ahmed, M.D., M.P.H., senior researcher and professor of cardiovascular disease at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s School of Medicine. “Now there’s a chance for even less of a waiting period to get a cleaner bill of cardiovascular health.”
