Quitting Smoking Spurs more Weight Gain than Previously Thought -- over 10 Pounds in the First Year

Most of the pounds are piled on in the first three months, a team of medical researchers wrote in the online journal bmj.com, as another group stressed that the health benefits of quitting far outweighed the risks of putting on weight.

For quitters who did not use nicotine replacement therapy, the average weight gain was around 10.3 pounds after a year.
Quitting smoking leads to an average weight gain of nine to 11 pounds in the first year -- "significantly" more than previously thought, a study said Wednesday.
Most of the pounds are piled on in the first three months, a team of medical researchers wrote in the online journal bmj.com, as another group stressed that the health benefits of quitting far outweighed the risks of putting on weight.
For quitters who did not use nicotine replacement therapy, the average weight gain was nearly 2.5 pounds at one month, 5 pounds at two, 6.4 pounds at three, 9.3 pounds at six months and 10.3 pounds after a year.
This was "substantially higher than the 6.5 pounds often quoted in smoking cessation advice leaflets," wrote the team from France and Britain.
"Moreover, this mean weight gain is greater than the 5 pound gain that female smokers report being willing to tolerate, on average, before embarking on a quit attempt."
Earlier research showed that nicotine is an appetite suppressant and may increase the metabolic rate.
For the latest paper, the researchers collated data from earlier studies conducted between 1989 and 2011 in the United States, Europe, Australia and east Asia to assess weight changes among successful quitters.
The researchers stressed that changes in body weight varied greatly, with about 16 percent of quitters losing weight and 13 percent gaining more than 22 pounds in the first year.
In an editorial accompanying the paper, experts from Spain and Australia said modest weight gain was far less life-threatening than smoking.
DIET & SMOKING WITHDRAWAL TIP
"Tobacco is the main cause of premature death worldwide, being responsible for 5.1 million deaths each year. Obesity, together with overweight, causes 2.8 million deaths," they wrote.
"Cohort studies indicate that modest weight gain does not increase the risk of death; smoking does."
They stressed that fears of getting fat could deter some people from quitting and called for further research to identify those most at risk of gaining weight to be targeted for counselling.