Quitting smoking boosts health

Quitting smoking after a heart attack has immediate benefits, including less chest pain, better quality of daily life and improved mental health, scientists have found. Many of these improvements became apparent as little as one month after quitting and are more pronounced after one year, according to the research. "Even in people who smoked and had a heart attack, we see fairly rapid improvements in important measures of health and quality of life when they quit smoking after their heart attacks, compared with people who continue smoking," said senior author Sharon Cresci, assistant professor at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis.