document: Half a Million Die From Smoking Yearly in U.S. Smoking causes half a million deaths each year in the U.S. , killing slightly more men than women , new statistics show . The rates of smoking-related deaths in men were comparable to what 's been found in other recent analyses . The numbers for the women , however , were higher than expected . The study , published in the journal Epidemiology , is '' `` an important reminder that this huge epidemic ... needs ongoing measurement , '' '' said Dr. Prabhat Jha , who studies smoking mortality and heads the Center for Global Health Research at St. Michael 's Hospital in Toronto . '' `` We just ca n't assume that we know enough about where this epidemic is going , '' '' Jha , who was not involved in the current study , told Reuters Health . For the new report , Dr. Brian Rostron , then of the University of California , Berkeley , used data from a national health survey that asked nearly 250,000 people if and how much they smoked currently and in the past . Participants were tracked for 2 to 9 years after filling out the survey . By the time the study ended , in 2006 , about 17,000 of them had died . Rostron , who now works at the Food and Drug Administration , calculated the odds of dying for smokers and non-smokers of different ages and genders . Then he applied the extra risks due to smoking to the total U.S. population . According to his calculations , there were an average of about 290,000 smoking-related deaths in men each year between 2002 and 2006 and 230,000 in women - a total of over half a million deaths . In all , about 2.5 million people in the U.S. die every year , according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . Among all current and former smokers , the greatest increase in risk of a tobacco-related death was seen between the ages of 65 and 74 . Once other factors such as weight and alcohol consumption were taken into account , people in that age group were three times as likely to die from any cause if they currently smoked between one and two packs of cigarettes a day , compared to if they had never smoked . As evidence of the risks of smoking has accumulated and spread , the number of current smokers in the U.S. has dropped over the past few decades . A new study in The Journal of the American Medical Association confirms that trend : about 7 percent of adults in the U.S. were heavy smokers in 2007 , compared to 23 percent in 1965 . The researchers on that study , led by Dr. John Pierce of the University of California , San Diego , defined '' `` heavy smoking '' '' as 20 or more cigarettes a day . Despite that good news , Jha said the new estimates show the need for more information on how smoking affects women . '' `` It might well be that in women the effects are greater and more severe , but we need more evidence , '' '' he said . Jha added that while rates of smoking and deaths from smoking have been falling over the long term in the U.S. , they 've been rising in low-income countries . Because of that , '' `` overall the number of smoking-related deaths worldwide is bound to increase , '' '' Jha said . Currently , there are about 5 to 6 million smoking-related deaths each year worldwide , he said .
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