Comedian Lee Sun-min [Newsis]
Comedian Lee Sun-min [Newsis]

Comedian Lee Sun-min, who pledged to pay 10 million won ($7,240) to anyone who catches him smoking, recently submitted to urine and oral swab tests to prove he has kept his word.

A video titled "Lee Sun-min's one month without cigarettes — is he really keeping it up?" was posted Saturday on the YouTube channel Pisikdaehak.

Lee had earlier announced he would pay a reward to anyone who spotted him smoking. He initially set the amount at 30 million won before lowering it to 10 million won.

In the video, Lee said he believed he had gone "just over two weeks" without smoking. Before quitting, he said he had already cut back on loose-leaf tobacco but was still smoking about a pack of heat-not-burn cigarettes a day.

He opened up about the hardest moments during his quit attempt. "It's tough after eating jjamppong," he said. "Eating something spicy and then stepping outside — that's when it gets difficult."

He said the most challenging situation was watching others go out for a smoke break. "I used to go out with everyone, and seeing them light up and thinking, 'I want one too' — that's the hardest part," he said.

To verify whether Lee had stayed smoke-free, both a urine test and an oral swab test were administered. Both kits needed to show two lines to confirm he had not smoked. The urine test initially produced only a faint single line.

Lee was visibly flustered, but the subsequent oral swab test showed a clear two-line result.

After seeing the outcome, Lee drew laughs by saying, "I would have been so wronged if we hadn't done this second test."

Lee said that since quitting, he feels refreshed when he wakes up in the morning.

While the physical health risks of smoking are well established, its effects on social well-being are less clear. Recent research suggests that smokers experience greater loneliness than non-smokers — and that the gap widens over time.

'Smokers lonelier than non-smokers,' study finds

A research team led by Dr. Kier Philip of Imperial College London presented findings at the European Respiratory Society Congress 2026 in Barcelona, Spain, on Sept. 7, showing that smokers reported higher levels of loneliness than non-smokers and experienced a greater increase in loneliness over two years. The analysis drew on data from more than 50,000 people across 15 European countries.

According to Yonhap, Dr. Philip said the study shows that smoking is not a social activity and may in fact lead to greater social isolation and loneliness. "We need to clearly communicate these psychosocial effects of smoking through various channels," he said.

Dr. Philip noted that an earlier study conducted in the United Kingdom had found smokers became lonelier than non-smokers, but said that finding could have been influenced by cultural and social norms specific to that country. "With this study, we wanted to examine the relationship between smoking and loneliness in other countries as well," he said.

The research team analyzed data from more than 50,000 participants across 15 countries who took part in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. The average age of participants was 67, with 22 percent identified as smokers at the start of the study and 48.5 percent living with more than two chronic conditions.

Loneliness was measured using the UCLA Loneliness Scale, which calculates a score based on how often participants feel they lack companionship, feel left out or feel isolated from others. The research team used this scale to compare loneliness levels between smokers and non-smokers, then repeated the survey two years later.

Current smokers showed higher levels of loneliness than non-smokers, and the difference held even after accounting for factors that could influence the outcome, such as age and sex.

Current smokers also experienced a greater increase in loneliness over time, and the same result emerged after controlling for baseline loneliness levels and demographic factors.

The research team said the relationship was broadly consistent across different regions of Europe, suggesting that smokers becoming lonelier is not a product of smoking customs in any particular country or culture but a pattern that holds across much of the continent.

Dr. Philip said one possible explanation is that smoking-related illness progressively limits mobility, making it harder for smokers to access and participate in social activities.

He added that smoking restrictions in public spaces and smoke-free home environments may also make social gathering places feel less appealing to smokers, reducing their opportunities to interact with others.

The research team cautioned that the findings alone cannot establish that smoking directly causes loneliness. It said framing the harms of smoking to include not just physical illness but also social isolation and loneliness could change how the case for quitting is made — and that the study has implications for approaches aimed at helping smokers quit.


mss@heraldcorp.com