Researchers at the University College London explored how much of a person's life can be shortened by smoking. "[It] works out to be almost seven hours of life lost per pack," says the study's lead author.
I might be getting whooshed, but she'd be the same age "by now" unless there was some interstellar-type time travel going on. (Not trying to be a jerk, and your point still stands, just getting a small chuckle about the idea that someone not smoking would have aged an extra 20 years in the same amount of time).
Population statistics don't generally map very well to individuals. The existence of outliers doesn't disprove the population data either.
As an example:
"Men are (on average) taller than women" does not mean "all men are taller than all women". But that the average height of men is higher, and the extreme ends of height are higher. The existence of short men does not disprove the average being taller.
That said cigarettes are clearly a high risk / zero reward sort of activity that is crazy to see continue into 2025.
90 year old has developed a chronic cough/sinus infection and she’s spent a lot of time talking to ENTs but she hasn’t given up the one thing that’s likely causing the problem. She’s been calling it allergies for about a year now.
If 50% of population accounts for the average, does that mean there is another 50% is an outlier? “On average” is just as meaningless as anecdotal evidence.