The study, of 472,000 participants aged 40-69, found that smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure and having a BMI ≥25 puts both men and women at increased risk of having a heart attack.
However, while male current smokers have over twice the risk of a heart attack than men who have never smoked, female smokers were found to have over three times the risk of women who have never smoked, giving them a so-called ‘excess risk'.
An excess risk was also found among women with high blood pressure, and Type I and Type II diabetes, but not with a high BMI.