Smoking expands expected lifetime with musculoskeletal disease.

By indirect estimation of mortality from smoking and life table methods we estimated expected lifetime without musculoskeletal diseases among never smokers, ex-smokers, and smokers. We found that although life expectancy of a heavy smoker is 7 years shorter than that of a never smoker, heavy smokers can expect to live more than 2 years longer with musculoskeletal diseases than never smokers.