"We don't know the exact cause of this. But it is probably because lungs of women are generally smaller than men's," said Arnulf Langhammer of the National Institute of Public Health in Norway. "If they smoke the same amount, women are exposed to higher concentrations of noxious gas."

In a study of 65,000 male and female smokers and nonsmokers, Langhammer and his colleagues determined that all smokers were twice as likely as nonsmokers to report respiratory symptoms like wheezing, breathlessness and coughing. "There was a strong association between tobacco smoking and respiratory symptoms. With increasing cigarette burden, women had a 50 percent higher risk of having respiratory problems and asthma," Langhammer explained.

The researchers found that the prevalence of asthma increased in line with the number of cigarettes women smoked. No such increase was found in male smokers. "Higher prevalence of respiratory symptoms and current asthma in women compared with men with the same smoke burden or daily cigarette consumption indicate women are more susceptible to tobacco smoking than men," concluded Langhammer.

The study is published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

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