Smoking causes hundreds of genetic mutations

Conclusion This study serves to highlight the known harms of cigarette smoking. The research benefits from analysing thousands of different cancer cell lines, and carefully comparing the mutations found in smokers with those of non-smokers. It shows that there are differences between the two – even in cancers of the same type – with those from smokers generally tending to have a higher number of mutations and abnormal substitutions in the DNA sequence.  However, it can't tell us much more than that. For example, it can't tell us whether the same cell type and stage of lung cancer in a smoker is likely to have a poorer prognosis than the same cancer in a non-smoker because it contains more mutations. As the researchers acknowledge, they can't tell from this study the exact biological mechanisms that may be causing the mutations in smokers and non-smokers, or know whether other smoking-related behaviours, such as alcohol consumption, may have an influence. It's also important to emphasise that the number of mutations caused per pack year smoked are very general estimates based on only this single dataset. For example, we can't know for definite that a man who has smoked one pack a day for 20 years now has 3,000 mutations in his lung cells. The amount of DNA damage caused by smoking in any individual may be greatly influenced by their underlying genetic profile, lifestyle, environment, and the type of tobacco smoked. Nevertheless, this study highlights the known harms o...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Cancer Heart/lungs Source Type: news