People who die from tobacco use do not die only in old age. About half of all smokers who are killed by tobacco die in middle age. On average, these smokers who die in middle age lose about 20-25 years of life expectancy. Many of those who die from smoking were not particularly heavy smokers, but most of them did start smoking in their teenage years. Smokers in their thirties and forties have five times as many heart attacks as non-smokers.
Heart attacks are the main way in which smoking kills young tobacco users.
Lower tar cigarettes do not substantially reduce the risk of heart attack in smokers. If all tobacco-caused cancer deaths could be eliminated, then death rates from other causes of cancer for men and women would be similar in different industrialized countries and would have shown a stable, or even slightly declining trend over the last three or four decades. Smoking is already causing about one-sixth of all deaths in developed countries. This proportion is still rising, mainly due to the increasing epidemic among women. This means that about 200 million out of the 1.2 billion people living in developed countries will eventually be killed by tobacco.