SMOKING is worse for your health than poverty, research has found.

Rich smokers generally die earlier than poor non-smokers, according to a new study published in the British Medical Journal.

And women smokers die earlier than male non-smokers, cancelling out the usual life expectancy gap.

For 28 years experts from the University of Glasgow followed 15,000 middle-aged women and men from two industrial towns in west Scotland.

They found that social deprivation, being a smoker  or being a man  all harmed their chances of being alive at the end of the study.