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# Tobacco use kills more than a million women a year
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/tobacco_use_kills_more_than_a_million_women_2905101122/
- Published: 2010-05-29T13:20:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T15:50:06.000Z
- Description: WHO said tobacco companies market aggressively to girls and women, especially in developing countries, and that in half of 151 countries girls use tobacco as often as boys. The agency estimates tobacco kills 1.5 million women a year.
- Author: Food Consumer
- Tags: Miscellaneous, Health News, #vivvo-import

The World health Organization said on May 28 that tobacco companies aggressively market their tobacco products to girls and women, especially, in developing countries, VOA News reported. 

In half of the 151 countries, girls' use of tobacco products was just as common as boys', the WHO was cited by VOA as saying. In some countries, including Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Cook Islands, Croatia, Czech Republic, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria and Uruguay, more girls smoked tobacco than boys. 

The health organization called for global action to protect women and girls against tobacco use, which can be additive and deadly. 

Tobacco smoke raises risk for cardiovascular, lung and many other diseases including atherosclerosis, hypertension, vascular disease, stroke, and tongue cancer, lung cancer, gum disease, osteoporosis, asthma attacks, diabetes, and Buerger’s disease among others. 

Women account for 64 percent of the 430,000 adult deaths from second-hand smoke; tobacco use kills 1.5 million women each year, WHO estimates. 

One recent study, led Schiess R and colleagues University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland suggests that smoking may increase the risk for pulmonary arterial hypertension. 

The study, which was published in the May 14, 2010 issue of Chest, involved 91 patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension and 18747 controls. 

The researchers found both tobacco smoke and secondhand smoke were associated with increased risk of the disease.

David Liu and edited by Rachel Stockton