Anti-tobacco polices could save millions of lives, according to a new study. Researchers examined the impact of tobacco control policies enacted in 41 countries from 2007-2010 and predicted the prevention of about 7.4 million premature deaths by 2050. The study, published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, covered a total of about 1 billion people, or one-seventh of the world’s population in 2008—290 million of whom were smokers. They based their predictions on the efficacy of anti-tobacco policies such as protecting people from tobacco smoke, offering smokers help to quit, warning about tobacco’s dangers, banning tobacco advertising, and raising tobacco taxes. “In addition to some 7.4 million lives saved, the tobacco control policies we examined can lead to other health benefits, such as fewer adverse birth outcomes related to maternal smoking, including low birth weight, and reduced health-care costs and less loss of productivity due to less smoking-related disease,” says the study’s lead author, David Levy, a professor of oncology at Georgetown University Medical Center. Tobacco use remains the world’s leading cause of preventable death, and an estimated 6 million people die each year from tobacco-related causes, according to the World Health Organization. If it weren’t for anti-tobacco policies, this number would be expected to rise to 8 million a year by 2030.