Smoking is the main cause of the fact that the Dutch have a lower life expectancy. This is one of the conclusions of the survey ‘Dutch life expectancy from an international perspective’, conducted by Leyden Academy on Vitality and Ageing in cooperation with NIDI (Dutch Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute).
In this survey the researchers compared the life expectancy in the Netherlands to other developed countries, such as Japan, France, United States and Sweden.
Besides the fact that smoking is almost completely responsible for the differences in life expectancy of Dutch and Japanese men, it turned out that stop smoking has an effect up to a very high age. In other means, it is never too late to quit smoking.
Click here for the survey.