Anti-smoking pioneer Sir Richard Peto today calls for Britain to step up efforts to cut smoking rates.
There is still massive potential to save lives by tackling tobacco, he will say tonight.
Sir Richard, one of Britain’s leading epidemiologists, will tonight give the annual Harveian Oration at the Royal College of Physicians.
He will say that smoking rates are falling in the UK but there is no room for "complacency."
A small reduction in a big cause of death is likely to be more effective than a big reduction in a small cause of death, he says.
In 1970 Britain had the world’s worst death rate from smoking – but by 2010 the UK had achieved the world’s biggest reduction in death rates, he says.
But the habit is still responsible for 20% of deaths of middle-aged Britons, twice as many as obesity, he says.
Sir Richard, co-director of the Clinical Trial Service Unit at the University of Oxford, says that if people stop smoking before the age of 40 they can avoid 90% of the risks linked to tobacco.
He will conclude by describing the "four corpsemen of the apocalypse", the four peacetime causes of death that are increasing in substantial parts of the world.
These are smoking, alcohol use, obesity and HIV.
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