CIGARETTES MORE DANGEROUS TO WOMEN [08/18]

According to a new Australian study:

* Women who smoke are more likely to develop lung cancer than male smokers

* Women also seem to need fewer cigarettes to do so

* Women also find it more difficult than men to quit smoking, said the report

More specifically:

* a woman who smoked the equivalent of a pack a day for 40 years had a cancer risk three times higher than a man smoking the same amount

* other studies had found higher levels of cellular damage in the genes of female smokers, which suggested the same amount of smoke caused more harm to women than men, rather than that women simply had different smoking habits

* only 18% of women who smoked more than 15 cigarettes a day quit smoking, compared with 25% of men

ASH - ACTION ON SMOKING AND HEALTH 2013 H Street, NW / Washington, DC 20006 / (202) 659-4310