--- title: Smoking Health: Smoking Helps You Lose Weight description: Smoking has a reputation for causing weight loss. A new study shows that smokers weigh about 5 pounds less than people who had never smoked canonical: https://time.com/3747439/smoking-cigarettes-weight-loss/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-17T15:13:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T05:12:54.196Z article:section: Health og:title: This Is Not a Good Reason to Smoke Cigarettes og:description: Smokers are skinnier, a new study says og:url: https://time.com/3747439/smoking-cigarettes-weight-loss/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebfd278d2ac2b7aa/698783f6cd1bbadfcb6f5b90/cigarettes.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Cigarettes og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Is Not a Good Reason to Smoke Cigarettes twitter:description: Smokers are skinnier, a new study says twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebfd278d2ac2b7aa/698783f6cd1bbadfcb6f5b90/cigarettes.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Is Not a Good Reason to Smoke Cigarettes ## Video: When There's No Smoke, It's Still Dire [Watch (HLS stream): When There's No Smoke, It's Still Dire](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bspWu15K.m3u8) (2:34)  _Published 2010-09-17. With smokeless tobacco products becoming more popular, the American Heart Association issued a new warning about the health risks associated with their use_  by [Mandy Oaklander](/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Mar 17, 2015 3:13 PM CUT  broken cigarettes and one whole broken cigarettes and one wholeGetty Images  by [Mandy Oaklander](/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Mar 17, 2015 3:13 PM CUT Anyone who’s considered lighting up knows smoking’s skinny-making reputation, and a new [study](http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/02/01/ije.dyu276.short?rss=1 "undefined") of 80,000 people shows there’s truth to the claim. Researchers found that smokers weighed about 5 pounds less than people who had never smoked, according to new research in the _International Journal of Epidemiology._ The cause of that lighter weight, the researchers say, is tobacco. Those findings are a direct contradiction to several observational studies that have linked smoking to just the opposite: higher body weight and BMI. But researchers at Copenhagen University Hospital wanted to look at the link genetically, in a way that wouldn’t be plagued by confounding lifestyle factors that often go along with smoking. They took weight and BMI measurements of 80,342 people, along with blood samples that they analyzed for DNA. They looked at a genetic variant associated with higher tobacco consumption, close to a gene called CHRNA3—”the smoking craving gene,” says study author Børge G. Nordestgaard, MD, professor at the University of Copenhagen in the department of clinical biochemistry. Smokers with this genotype weighed almost three pounds less than smokers who didn’t inherit this genetic variant. But in people who had never smoked or formerly smoked, there was no link between CHRNA3 and a lower body weight. “That’s really the proof that smoking causes it,” Nordestgaard says. That doesn’t mean that smoking will give you a better figure. In the study, smoking only affected total body weight, not body shape or fat distribution. The weight loss effect may be due to a laundry list of chemicals in cigarettes, the authors say—some studies have found nicotine to suppress appetite and increase resting metabolic rate. “There’s a possibility that many of these chemicals may influence weight in some pathway we don’t know about yet,” Nordestgaard says. That’s obviously no reason to start—or continue—smoking, the researchers caution. “From what we know so far, the hazards of smoking much overweigh the slight benefit of having a lower body weight,” Nordestgaard says. “But when smokers tell you they won’t stop smoking because they’re afraid of gaining weight, I think it’s important to know that this is real—so we can try at the same time to help them quit smoking and keep a lower body weight.” _Read next:_ [_What Diet Soda Does to Belly Fat_](http://time.com/3746047/diet-soda-bad-belly-fat/?iid=time%5Freadnext "undefined") [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/?sl%5Fautoplay=true&xid=spl-fullbrief-article "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3747439/smoking-cigarettes-weight-loss/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3747439/smoking-cigarettes-weight-loss/"},"headline":"This Is Not a Good Reason to Smoke Cigarettes","datePublished":"2015-03-17T15:13:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T05:12:54.196Z","description":"But smoking causes weight loss, a new study says","url":"https://time.com/3747439/smoking-cigarettes-weight-loss/","keywords":["Addiction","Smoking","Cigarettes","tobacco","Weight loss"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebfd278d2ac2b7aa/698783f6cd1bbadfcb6f5b90/cigarettes.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mandy Oaklander","jobTitle":"Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebfd278d2ac2b7aa/698783f6cd1bbadfcb6f5b90/cigarettes.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Cigarettes","caption":"Cigarettes","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/addiction/","name":"Addiction"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3747439/smoking-cigarettes-weight-loss/","name":"This Is Not a Good Reason to Smoke Cigarettes"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"When There's No Smoke, It's Still Dire","description":"With smokeless tobacco products becoming more popular, the American Heart Association issued a new warning about the health risks associated with their use","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/bspWu15K/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2010-09-17T14:18:48.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bspWu15K.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3747439/smoking-cigarettes-weight-loss/","duration":"PT2M34S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3747439/smoking-cigarettes-weight-loss/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```