A few studies have suggested that even if they smoke the same amount, women have a higher chance of developing lung cancer than do men; some Harvard researchers checked it out.

What the researchers wanted to know: Do women have a higher risk of developing lung cancer than men?

What they did: The researchers looked at two big, handy data sets, the Nurses' Health Study, which started in 1976 with 121,700 female registered nurses, and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, which started in 1986 with 51,529 men (vets, optometrists, podiatrists, dentists, osteopaths, and pharmacists). Both studies are still going on, with respondents filling out a mailed questionnaire every two years. For this lung cancer study, the researchers selected all white people (because race can also affect cancer rates) who smoked in 1986 or previously smoked, and looked for reports of lung cancer between 1986 and 2000. Of the nearly 86,000 smokers or former smokers, 1,266 developed lung cancer.

What they found: In this group, women and men with similar smoking histories had similar risks of lung cancer. The researchers say women might have had a slightly higher risk of getting lung cancer, but it wasn't statistically significant. Women did have a statistically significant higher risk of adenocarcinoma, the most common type of lung cancer, than men—but no higher risk of lung cancer overall.

Why you should care: Maybe women who smoke aren't any worse off than men.

Caveats: These results probably only apply to Caucasians, since respondents of other races were left out of the analysis. Also, the study didn't look at tar content in cigarettes or depth of inhalation. For example, if men generally inhaled more deeply than women, that could increase their exposure and bring their lung cancer risk up, even if they are actually less susceptible to lung cancer than women are.

Find out more: Nurses' Health Study http://www.channing.harvard.edu/nhs

Health Professionals' Follow-up Study http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hpfs

Women and lung cancer: http://www.lungcancer.org/

Read the article: Bain, C., Feskanich, D., Speizer, F.E., Thun, M., Hertzmark, E., Rosner, B.A., and G.A. Colditz. "Lung Cancer Rates in Men and Women With Comparable Histories of Smoking." Journal of the National Cancer Institute. June 2, 2004, Vol. 96, No. 11, pp. 826-834.