People who smoke, and even those who have given up, report living in more pain than those who have never picked up the habit, a report suggests.

Axar.az reports citing BBC.

The findings are based on an analysis of data from more than 220,000 people conducted by UCL.

The researchers say the reason why is unknown, but could include smoking causing permanent changes in the body.

The anti-smoking campaign group Ash said the findings should not come as a surprise given the dangers of smoking.

Scientists were analysing data from a set of online experiments in the BBC Lab UK Study, in which people took part between 2009 and 2013.

They were sorted into three categories:

• never smoked daily
• used to smoke daily
• or currently smoke daily