Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, June 3, 1993                   TAG: 9306030097
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: CHICAGO                                LENGTH: Short

GAINS CITED FOR AGED WHO QUIT SMOKING

"There's a misperception that if you smoke and survive to an elderly age, you are resistant to the harmful effects of smoking," said Dr. Millicent W. Higgins of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. "That's not true."

Higgins, the institute's associate director for epidemiology and biometry, is the lead author of a study on smoking published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Her team studied 5,201 men and women over age 65 and found that the longer smokers puffed, the worse their lungs worked.

"Vigorous efforts should be made to persuade elderly smokers to quit," Higgins said.

Male smokers averaged 23 percent poorer lung function than men who never smoked. Female smokers averaged 18 percent poorer lung function than women who never smoked.

The subjects who quit between ages 40 and 60 had moderate lung functions. Those who quit before age 40 had lungs as functional as people who never smoked.

- Associated Press