April 13, 2004 -- Cigarette smoking appears to have more harmful effects on women, which increases women's risk of dying from lung cancer, a new study shows.

It's a red-light warning to women and girls: Don't take up smoking, or you should kick the habit if you're a smoker.

"Our hope is that this puts this on women's radar. Ask women what they worry about most, it's breast cancer. They should be worrying about lung cancer," researcher Jyoti Patel, MD, an oncology researcher at Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, tells WebMD.

Her report appears in the new issue of TheJournal of the American Medical Association.

"We need to protect our daughters and granddaughters from being suckered by the tobacco industry," Michael Thun, MD, head of epidemiological research for the American Cancer Society, tells WebMD. "There is a global effort from tobacco companies to capitalize on the women's movement and the growing sense of independence and pride, to entrap women and girls into smoking."