Women Who Smoked More Now Dying More

Women’s smoking patterns have been similar to men’s for a while now, and a new study shows the result — higher death rates. Women smokers in the 2000s died of lung cancer almost 26 times as often as women who never smoked. That’s about the same as the gap between men who do and don’t smoke. And it’s a big jump compared with women smokers in the 1980s. They died of lung cancer at 13 times the rate of nonsmoking women. In the 1960s, the risk for women smokers was only 3 times as high. The reason for the change, researchers said, is that women have been starting smoking earlier and smoking more cigarettes. And they’ve been doing that long enough for health effects to occur. Women smokers also have nearly caught up with men in their increased risk of emphysema and other smoking-related diseases. The study was based on statistics from the American Cancer Society.