Biological differences between men and women apparently lead to lethal toxins in tobacco smoke having a more potent effect on women vis-à-vis the effect that it has on men!

With a new study - published in the journal The Lancet – finding that the risk of heart disease is 25 percent more for women, as compared to men, it has become clear that toxic chemicals in cigarettes have a stronger effect on the women’s bodies.

The study – conducted by University of Minnesota epidemiologist Rachel Huxley; and Mark Woodward, of Johns Hopkins University, Maryland – elucidated that the smoke’s more potent impact on women is the reason why female smokers are two times as likely to contract lung cancer from their habit as men.

Based on a comprehensive analysis of 86 earlier studies that involved over 4 million people, the study suggests that the increased heart-disease risk for women is most likely a result of the physiological differences between the sexes.

The study also noted that, the heart-disease risk for women smokers could actually be even worse than what the results reveal, given the fact that women generally smoke fewer cigarettes than men.

In their smoking warning for women, the researchers said: “Women might extract a greater quantity of carcinogens and other toxins 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”!