Best way to avoid heart disease? Don't light up, according to new preventive services list

The National Commission on Prevention Priorities and HealthPartners released its top 28 evidence-based preventive services list, and the elimination of tobacco use was ranked the best way to avoid getting heart disease, stroke and other diseases.

According to a new study published in the Annals of Family Medicine, besides saving lives, smoking cessation could save $175 billion a year in medical costs.

Though the number of adults who smoke has declined over the last two decades, 42 million remain daily smokers. In 2015, 1.6 million middle and high school students said they smoked in the last 30 days.

“Evidence indicates that receiving advice and help from a doctor can more than double the chance of smokers being successful at quitting,” said Michael Maciosek, senior research investigator and health economist at HealthPartners Institute for Education and Research in Minneapolis. “Trying until successful so that a patient can quit before a serious smoking-related disease sets in can extend quantity and quality of life and reduce healthcare costs.”

Researchers argue that annual tobacco counseling for 4 million youth and adults can save lives and reduces healthcare costs, but only one-third of resources are actually being realized. According to the study, youth counseling could prevent more than 42,000 smoking deaths and save each person $225 in healthcare costs annually. Adult counseling could stop more than 69,000 smoking fatalities and save each person $580 a year.

“The ability of clinicians to address tobacco use is threatened by pressures on primary care physicians to increase their scope while managing the same number of patients and by looming changes to health insurance policy,” Maciosek said.