Study: Smoking causes lower body weight
MANILA, Philippines – Adding heat to the long-dragging debate about the effects of smoking is a new study, which claims that smoking indeed helps you lose weight.
The research published in the International Journal of Epidemiology found out the weight-reducing reputation of smoking is real. Contrary to other studies, which claim that smoking results to higher body weight and nody mass index, the study found out that smokers weighed about 5 pounds less than people who had never smoked.
This only means that the reason why other studies see smoking as the cause of weight gain is because of the lifestyle that comes with it such as staying up late and drinking alcohol. Therefore, the looked at the link genetically, in a way that wouldn’t be affected by lifestyle factors that often go along with smoking.
In doing the research, experts from Copenhagen University Hospital, examined 80,342 participants, including 15?220 current smokers, with details on body weight, smoking habits and CHRNA3 genotype ( a genetic variant associated with higher tobacco consumption).
“The study found out that those with CHRNA3 gene was associated with 0.59?kg (0.96; 0.22) lower body weight, 0.23?kg/m2 (0.33; 0.13) lower body mass index, 0.32?cm (0.74; 0.003) lower waist circumference and 0.45?cm (0.66; 0.24) lower hip circumference,” the report says.
In other words, smokers with this genotype weighed almost 3 pounds less than smokers who didn’t inherit this genetic variant. But in people who had never smoked or formerly smoked, there was no link between CHRNA3 and a lower body weight.
The study concluded that “high tobacco consumption causes lower body weight among current smokers. However, smoking does not seem to affect body shape or fat distribution causally."
