Teenagers may find it easier to quit or cut down on smoking if they increase the number of days they exercise for 20 to 30 minutes, equivalent to a short walk, a new study has found.
US researchers found teenagers who increased the days on which they got just 20 minutes of exercise were able to cut down on their smoking habit.
Teenage smokers were more likely to quit altogether if they participated in a smoking cessation/fitness programme - and they ramped up the days on which they got at least 30 minutes of physical activity, the study found.
"This study adds to evidence suggesting that exercise can help teenagers who are trying to quit smoking," said lead author Kimberly Horn, the Associate Dean for Research at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS).
"Teens who boosted the number of days on which they engaged in at least 20 minutes of exercise, equivalent to a short walk, were more likely than their peers to resist lighting up a cigarette," she said.
Horn and her colleagues tracked 233 teenagers from 19 high schools in West Virginia, a state with among the highest smoking rates in the US.
The participants in the study were daily smokers with other risky behaviours.
"It is not unusual for teenage smokers to engage in other unhealthy habits. Smoking and physical inactivity - for instance - often go hand in hand," Horn said.
The average teenager in the study smoked a half a pack on weekdays and a whopping pack a day on the weekends.
Horn's team looked to see if an increase in physical activity would help teens quit regardless of the type of intervention.
Some teenagers went through an intensive anti-smoking programme combined with a fitness intervention while others just got the smoking cessation program and still others listened to a short anti-smoking lecture.
Horn found that all of the teens increased their exercise activity to some degree just by virtue of being in the study. However, teens who reported increasing the number of days in which they got just 20 minutes a day of exercise were able to significantly cut back on the cigarettes they smoked.
Researchers still do not know the mechanism that might explain the findings. However, Horn said that physical activity is known to spur the release of the body's feel-good chemicals called endorphins.
One possible explanation is that those substances might help teen smokers better deal with the cravings or weather the withdrawal symptoms that often lead to relapse, she said.
The study was published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
