If you were 30 years of age and a smoker and you were told that you had the lungs of a 67-year-old, would you consider quitting smoking?

A recent study published in the British Medical Journal found that telling smokers their lung age or the age of the average healthy person with similar lung function to theirs was an incentive for getting smokers to quit smoking.

Gary Parkes and colleagues from the United Kingdom (UK) used spirometry to evaluate lung function in 561 current smokers, age 35 years and older. Those in the intervention group were given their results in terms of lung age, or the age of the average healthy individual who would perform similar to them on spirometry. Those in the control group received a raw score. Both groups were counseled to stop smoking and were offered referral to smoking cessation programs provided by the National Health Services.

After twelve months, 13.6 percent of those in the intervention group and 6.4 percent in those in the control group had quit smoking.

“Telling smokers their lung age significantly improves the likelihood of them quitting smoking, but the mechanism by which this intervention achieves its effect is unclear,” said the study authors. Whether the news is positive or negative, presenting information in an understandable and visual way seems to encourage higher levels of successful smoking cessation.

In case you didn’t know, cigarette use is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 27 June 2008 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), cigarette use among high school students in the United States increased from 27.5 percent in 1991 to 36.4 percent in 1997, declined to 21.9 percent in 2003, and remained unchanged from 2003 to 2007. Rates among black male and female students declined from 2001 to 2007, while rates among white and Hispanic students remained stable overall.

The take home message for parents: Consider doing a lung age on your teenager, twenty-something, or thirty-something. The life you save may be their own.