Smoking and diabetes

King James 1st of England announced: ‘this Tobacco, is not simply of a dry and hot qualitie; but rather hath a certaine venemous facultie joyned with the heate thereof, which makes it have an Antipathie against nature, as by the hatefull smell thereof doeth well appeare.’ He considered smoking ‘A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs.’1 Doll and Peto’s landmark study of 34 439 male British doctors is well-known – their 50-year analysis concluded: ‘A substantial progressive decrease in the mortality rates among non-smokers over the past half century (due to prevention and improved treatment of disease) has been wholly outweighed, among cigarette smokers, by a progressive increase in the smoker v nonsmoker death rate ratio due to earlier and more intensive use of cigarettes.’ ‘On average, cigarette smokers die about 10 years younger than non-smokers. Stopping at age 60, 50, 40, or 30 gains, respectively, about 3, 6, 9, or 10 years of life expectancy.’2