Women smokers face a greater risk of heart attacks than men who smoke, new research suggests.
The findings, published in the online edition of The Lancet medical journal, indicate that women are 25% more likely to have a heart attack from smoking.
The longer a woman smoked, the greater her heart disease risk was compared with that of a man who had smoked for the same length of time.
A woman's extra risk increased by 2% for every additional year she had been smoking.
Authors Dr Rachel Huxley, from the University of Minnesota, and Dr Mark Woodward, from Johns Hopkins University Maryland, wrote: ‘Women might extract a greater quantity of carcinogens and other toxic agents from the same number of cigarettes than men.
'This occurrence could explain why women who smoke have double the risk of lung cancer compared with their male counterparts.
'Physicians and health professionals should be encouraged to increase their efforts at promotion of smoking cessation in all individuals.
'Present trends in female smoking, and this report, suggest that inclusion of a female perspective in tobacco-control policies is crucial.'
