However, a new study suggests that smokers who quit before the age of 40 may be able to live as long as people who never smoked at all.
About 46.6 million U.S. adults smoke cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Annually about 443,000 people die from smoking-related illnesses and another 8.6 million people live with a smoking-related disease.
That study showed that while men's lung cancer rates used to be much higher than women's, they had caught up.
But Jha emphasized that the study isn't suggesting people can smoke until the age of 40 and then suddenly quit.
"Former smokers still have a greater risk of dying sooner than people who never smoked," Jha said.
"It really makes it very clear when they're talking about having a 10-year less life expectancy. »
