Quitting smoking reduces HIV-positive individuals’ likelihood of contracting bacterial pneumonia, a new study has found.

Patients of a group called the ANRS CO3 Aquitaine Cohort who visited participating AIDS clinics in France at least twice between 2000 and 2007 were tracked for the purposes of the study.

Those enrolled in the study did not have bacterial pneumonia at their first visit and researchers had access to participants’ tobacco-consumption status throughout the course of the investigation.

At the conclusion of the study, patients who smoked were more than twice as…