Genetic damage from just 15 cigarettes
by William Hobson
Just 15 cigarettes can cause mutations to Smokers DNA according to the findings of a new study.
The Daily Mail reports that British researchers mapping out the genetic blueprint of a lung cancer patient have made alarming findings that provide yet another reason to stop smoking. As part of a massive international project, the researchers found that the patient's DNA exhibited nearly 23,000 mutations that all bore the hallmarks of chemical damage caused by smoking tobacco.
Whilst genetic mutations are not always cancerous, all cancers are caused by mutations in DNA. Often these mistakes in the genetic code are the result of environmental agents such as industrial chemicals, UV light - or cigarette smoke.
The researches compared the genetic code of a 55-year old man with lung cancer to those of a healthy patient. This is part of an ongoing attempt to build a "catalogue of mutations" according to the scientists at the Cancer Genome Project.
Researchers were surprised at the extent which lifestyle choices such as sun exposure or smoking were responsible for cancerous mutations, said Peter Campbell, group leader at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and leader of the study. They found that while many cancers develop because the body's natural repair mechanisms have themselves become damaged, this wasn't the case in lung cancer or skin cancer.
More than 1.3 million people per year die from lung cancer according to statistics from the World Health Organisation. This makes it the most deadly type of tumour. As the researchers found no standout, single 'lung cancer gene', they believe that the vast majority of these cancers stem from mutations caused by smoking.
Speaking to medical news service Bloomberg.com, Campbell said that mutations were likely to begin occurring as soon as a person started smoking. He described smoking as a 'game of russian roulette in which mutations were fired again and again until they hit a critical gene'.
However, this damage can be completely undone within a decade of successfully stopping smoking. Campbell said that within 10 to 15 years of quitting, a person's genetic profile returns to its original state.
These findings provide yet another reason for people to seek out therapies to help them kick the habit. Changing behaviour through techniques such as stop smoking hypnotherapy may prove useful where nicotine substitutes have previously failed.
