Health and Fitness

Despite decades of tobacco control policies, population growth has seen an increasing number of smokers, it warned.

The researchers said mortality could increase as tobacco companies targeted aggressively new markets, particularly in the developing world.

The report was published in the medical journal The Lancet.

"Despite more than half a century of unequivocal evidence of the harmful effects of tobacco on health, today, one in four men in the world is a daily smoker," said lead author Dr. Emmanuela Gakidou.

"Smoking remains the second most common risk factor for early death and disability, and to further reduce its impact we need to step up tobacco control to further reduce smoking prevalence and attributable burden."

The Global Burden of Diseases report was based on smoking habits in 195 countries and territories between 1990 and 2015.

He found that nearly one billion people smoked daily in 2015: one in four men and one in 20 women.

Increased taxes

This was a reduction of one in three men and one in 12 women who became illuminated in 1990.

However, population growth resulted in an increase in the total number of smokers, compared with 870 million in 1990.

And the number of tobacco-related deaths - more than 6.4 million in 2015 - increased by 4.7% over the same period.

The study found that some countries had been successful in helping people quit smoking, mainly through a combination of higher taxes, package warnings and education programs.

Over the 25-year period, Brazil has seen the percentage of daily smokers increase from 29% to 12% for men and from 19% to 8% for women.

But according to the report, Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines have not changed from 1990 to 2015.

Russia has seen smoking among women increase by 4% over the same period and similar trends are emerging in parts of Africa, the authors warned.