January 23, 2013 / Wall Street Journal / – Five decades after the U.S. surgeon general first warned of the hazards of smoking, researchers reported fresh evidence Wednesday of tobacco’s devastating toll on the health of the U.S. population—and of the benefits of quitting.

Two studies that looked at the effects of smoking over a lifetime found that both men and women who smoke were about three times as likely to die before reaching age 80 in one study, and 75 in the other study, compared with those who never smoked.

One of the studies found that women who smoke through their lives lose 11 years of longevity, compared with never-smokers, while men lose about 12 years.

“Men and women are now equal—they both lose a decade of life from smoking,” said Prabhat Jha, director of the center for global health research at University of Toronto. He is lead author of one of the reports, both of which are being published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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