In 1982, the United States Surgeon General’s report stated that “there is no single action an individual can take to reduce the risk of cancer more effectively than quitting smoking, particularly cigarettes”—a statement that is as true today as it was then.

When a person quits smoking, the healing process begins within 20 minutes: the heart rate drops toward normal, circulation improves, and the risk of having a heart attack or stroke or of developing certain types of cancer associated with smoking start to diminish.

Even seniors who quit after many years can experience positive effects. A smoker who stops smoking at age 65 cuts the risk of dying from a tobacco-related disease in half.

 And a recent study showed that elderly women who kick the habit can reduce their chances of developing age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a disease that can significantly reduce a person’s quality of life.

AMD is a leading cause of vision loss in Americans 60 years of age and older. It doesn’t cause total blindness, but it causes blurring or a blind spot in the part of the eye responsible for central vision, the macula.

Clear central vision is necessary for reading, driving, recognizing faces and doing detailed work. The greatest risk factor for AMD is age, but family history (those with immediate family members with the disease), race (whites are more likely than African-Americans), gender (women at greater risk than men), obesity and smoking may also increase the risk.

To determine how smoking affects the risk of AMD later in life, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) researchers analyzed data on a group of 1,958 women who were participants of the Study of Osteoporotic Fractures, 75 of whom were smokers.

The participants underwent retinal photographs at the beginning of the study, when they were 78 years of age, and again five years later at 83 years. The researchers looked for signs of AMD within the photographs.

Overall, the women who smoked had an 11 percent higher rate of AMD than non-smoking women the same age. In addition, 80-plus women who smoked were 5.5 times more likely than their non-smoking counterparts to develop the condition.

Alcohol consumption was also found to significantly elevate the risk of early AMD. “The take-home message is that it’s never too late to quit smoking,” said Dr. Anne Coleman, the study’s lead author and professor of ophthalmology at the Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA.

“We found that even older people’s eyes will benefit from kicking the habit.”

The researchers aren’t certain of the underlying biological reasons for the link between smoking and increased risk of AMD for older women, but they theorize that smoking may reduce the levels of antioxidants in the blood, changing the blood flow to the eyes, thus reducing the amount of pigmentation in the retina.

Dr. Paul Sieving, director of the National Eye Institute, which along with the National Institute on Aging funded the research, welcomed the findings.

“This study provides yet another compelling reason to stop smoking and suggests that it is never too late to quit.”

It is estimated that AMD already causes visual impairment in approximately 1.7 million of the 34 million Americans over age 65. And with 200,000 people developing the disease each year in the U.S., that figure is expected to rise to nearly 3 million by 2020.

The National Eye Institute is conducting and supporting numerous studies to learn more about AMD.

For example, scientists are studying the possibility of transplanting healthy cells into a diseased retina, investigating certain anti-inflammatory treatments for the wet form of AMD, and evaluating families with a history of the disease to understand genetic and hereditary factors that may cause AMD.

The findings appear in the January edition of the American Journal of Ophthalmology.