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Smokers were more likely than nonsmokers to have died from one of the established smoking-related diseases, the researchers found. These included most kinds of heart disease; stroke; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; pneumonia, influenza and tuberculosis; atherosclerosis; aortic aneurysms and other arterial diseases; diabetes; acute myeloid leukemia; and cancers of the lung, pancreas, colon and rectum, kidney, liver, bladder, larynx, lip and oral cavity, stomach and esophagus.

These diseases were responsible for the overwhelming majority of deaths among men and women who were still smoking at the end of their lives.

But not all of them. Another 17% of deaths among female smokers and 15% of the deaths of male smokers were traced to other causes.

In nearly every case, the diseases in this second group were more likely to kill current smokers than nonsmokers, according to the study.

For instance, female smokers were 30% more likely to die of breast cancer than their non-smoking counterparts, and men who smoked were 40% more likely to die of prostate cancer than their non-smoking peers. Rare cancers were 60% more likely to kill men if they were smokers, the researchers found.

The risk of death due to infections was more than twice as high for smokers than for nonsmokers. Ditto for hypertension, hypertensive renal disease and a range of digestive diseases.

Smokers were 2.6 to 3.6 times more likely than nonsmokers to die of liver cirrhosis and 1.9 to 2.1 times more likely to die of kidney failure. Hypertensive heart disease, some kinds of respiratory diseases and ischemic disorders of the intestines were also more likely to kill smokers than nonsmokers, the study authors calculated.

The more cigarettes a person smoked per day, the greater his or her risk of dying from infections, breast cancer or kidney failure. Among those who quit, the longer it had been since the last cigarette, the lower the risk of dying from infections or breast cancer, according to the report.

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