[cblades]

Those hospitalized tend to be elderly. How many frequent smokers live to be elderly?

[jkh1]

In the linked study[1] the effect is still there after controlling for age and sex.

[1] https://doi.org/10.32388/WPP19W.3

[piva00]

You can check the French distribution of smokers by age group here (could only find data from 2010, there has to be an updated dataset somewhere): https://www.statista.com/statistics/785664/consumption-daily...