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Smoking Permanently Damages Your DNA, Study Finds (nbcnews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Smoking scars DNA in clear patterns, researchers reported Tuesday. Most of the damage fades over time, they found -- but not all of it. Their study of 16,000 people found that while most of the disease-causing genetic footprints left by smoking fade after five years if people quit, some appear to stay there forever. The marks are made in a process called methylation, which is an alteration of DNA that can inactivate a gene or change how it functions -- often causing cancer and other diseases. The team examined blood samples given by 16,000 people taking part in various studies going back to 1971. In all the studies, people have given blood samples and filled out questionnaires about smoking, diet, lifestyle and their health histories. They found smokers had a pattern of methylation changes affecting more than 7,000 genes, or one-third of known human genes. Many of the genes had known links to heart disease and cancers known to be caused by smoking. Among quitters, most of these changes reverted to the patterns seen in people who never smoked after about five years, the team reported in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics. But smoking-related changes in 19 genes, including the TIAM2 gene linked to lymphoma, lasted 30 years, the team found.
Meth?
Would the same be true of people who were exposed to coal smoke for long periods?
If you oughta die from something, it may well be something you enjoy, like smoking, food, alcohol or whatever.
Dying from good health after you've been starving yourself of every pleasure all your life is, well, pointless.
Tobacco can't be any worse for my DNA than the 1970s were.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Just combine smoking with exposure to heavy water. I understand that results in a fairly positive change to one's DNA.
Natural to inhale burning plant matter
They don't answer the only question we care about.
Heritability.
If it doesn't damage your kids genes ...and by extension, pollute the human genome ...then I don't care if you are dumb enough to damage your own health.
Unless you are a close relative, or smoke around me, it's no skin off my nose, if you want to commit suicide by cigarette or a Kevorkian death machine.
How much and for how long .
.. I've tried several times.
__________________________
Its easy to quit smoking
Everyone knows that toggling a switch is damage.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Now I believe it.
This study might explain the explosion of peanut allergies, adhd, and many other disorders.
Smoking was really popular during the baby boom.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Man, you reek of smuggery. Hopefully that's not heritable, because future generations will be fucked.
The cytosine methylation signal along a strand of DNA is theoretically heritable, even though it has nothing to do with the actual sequence of bases.
There are vast stretches of junk DNA in the genome, some with old genes for ancient viruses or parasitic sequences like transposons, and the way the cell keeps those parts of DNA away from cell machinery is by methylating the cytosine residues. The methyl groups prevent RNA polymerase from transcribing the DNA and therefore it gets silenced.
When a cell divides, the methyl groups are only on the original strand; the new complimentary strand doesn't have any. The methylation signal has to be actively transcribed from one strand to another; an enzyme runs up the DNA feeling for methylated cytosine residues. When it finds some, it starts methylating any cytosine residues that might be nearby on the opposite strand, to make sure the troublesome regions all stay commented out. That's why it's heritable.
John's Boner is actually a stiff snake, so the accusation is technically correct. The best kind of correct.
Captcha word: "reinsert". Which may explain their butt-hurt.
Big question probably is: but does it affect gamets?
What is it about "tobacco" smoke that causes this change in DNA, but maybe not caused by marijuana smoke? Or smog? Or eating sugar? Or getting vaccines?
Could it be caused by the additives? The pesticides? The rolling paper? Is it the carbon monoxide? The nicotine? Or does the tobacco plant simply contain the perfect storm of noxious compounds?
Ok, so what? Another article that says "smoking is bad." Not constructive-- it's just another excuse for people to dogpile onto the boogey man that is tobacco without actually finding the facts, curing addiction, or improving smoking products.
People do not smoke because they think it's smart and healthy. Some people do it because it's social. Others do it because they've been affected by clever marketing as youngsters and have gone years without realizing their Marlboro Man self-image is actually just nicotine addiction. One thing is for sure: being a smug asshole and being rude to people who smoke for one reason or another does not deter them at all-- it reinforces the desire to smoke because the cigarette makes them feel better than anti-smokers' negativity. A cigarette merely offends the smoker's physiology, while smug assholes offend the smoker's very soul.
Does this include weed?
420blazeit
People have been imbibing tobacco products for hundreds of years. It is obvious the vast majority of us have adapted to its use.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Does pot cause a similar genetic damage? I'll bet money that it does.
Lots of research related to how smoking affects you in many ways. And DNA "damages" is a scary thing. But what about eating processed food and drinking sodas on a daily base? What about sitting all day long watching TV? Smokers should have understood by now that the cigarette is bad for health, on many angles. But research about other behaviors likely detrimental to DNA would be also interesting.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
That smokes cause health problems is well established. There's no need to use the phrase "scars DNA." DNA cannot be scarred.
They are looking at this the wrong way.
Damages DNA in each and every cell, I suppose. Passing by all the cell's membranes...
The fucking idiots doesn't even know the basics of cell biology.
They probably didn't address it because it's obviously heritable. Genetics 101. There's no mechanism by which those genetic changes could be prevented from potentially passing to offspring, except not having offspring (or making a custom gene drive to reverse the changes before spawning).
"pollute the human genome" Nice one, Hitler!
because it's obviously heritable
Far from it. Unless it is the sperm or the eggs that are affected, DNA changes won't propagate. TFA mentions 7k genes can be affected, but doesn't elaborate the genes of which cells. Even supposing smoke hits you straight in the sack or the ovaries (which it doesn't), that still means that less than a quarter of all DNA in some of the cells will be affected. Hardly a certainty, even under the largest possible exaggeration of the risk.
Maybe you should take that Genetics 101 instead of talking about it.
"pollute the human genome" Nice one, Hitler!
We already prohibit general use of a number of medical interventions based on transplanting porcine cells into humans.
For example, it's possible to exploit the immune privilege of the brain in order to transplant fetal pig brain cells into humans to treat conditions such as Parkinson's, Huntington's and islet cells into the pancreas of people with Type I diabetes.
The big risk is Porcine endogenous retrovirus (PERV -- yes, it's actually called that), being transmitted, and becoming part of the human genome. Thus, people who have received these xenografts are prohibited from sexual reproduction post-graft (although it's possible to save germ cells prior, to permit in vitro fertilization techniques).
See also:
Porcine xenografts in Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease patients: preliminary results.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...
So yes, numb-nuts: "pollute the human genome".
It's not Hitlerian, or in any way related to eugenics to prevent introduction of DNA errors or endogenous viruses into the general genome in a heritable way.
When a cell divides, the methyl groups are only on the original strand; the new complimentary strand doesn't have any. The methylation signal has to be actively transcribed from one strand to another; an enzyme runs up the DNA feeling for methylated cytosine residues. When it finds some, it starts methylating any cytosine residues that might be nearby on the opposite strand, to make sure the troublesome regions all stay commented out. That's why it's heritable.
The methylation inactivation is heritable. The issue, in this case, was erroneous activation or switching of cells to modify protein production.
I suspect that the mechanism involved (they don't say) in the repair of the genes which end up going back to normal is related to the production of O6-methyl-transferase via the MGMT complex sites on the long arm of c21 -- the same thing that results in chemo-resistance to cancers, such as pancreatic cancer or glioblastoma, when combined with the appropriate mutation of the p53 gene on c17.
I think as long as it doesn't involve a long term mutation of a cancer related gene, such that it effect the germ cells, it's not a problem. Since you tend to come pre-packed with all the germ cells you are ever going to have in your lifetime, then the issue will be smoking by pregnant women, and all other damage that results in disease will only be self-inflicted diseases, rather than heritable.
Which still means they've failed to answer the question of whether or not it's heritable, because they've failed to discuss whether or not it impacts germ cells (arguably unlikely, but it'd be nice to have an answer, particularly when making decisions on how and when to regulate smoking, or minimally, smoking in public).
Apparently it's perfectly safe...so vaping companies say AND there's been some studies to say that vaping is so much better for you than smoking...
You should believe vaping is safe...except if you suspect that the lack of decades of data makes it difficult to determine AND if you suspect studies are influenced, falsified, wrong or completely malicious.
Because respectable bodies of research were never going to lie for money and they never do:
This -> https://www.statnews.com/2016/...
The eagle-eyed reader will notice this is a research about sugar. Nothing to do with smoking or vaping...after all another supposedly respectable body already said vaping is 95% healthier. Public Health England, a government affiliated body no less. -> https://www.theguardian.com/so...
Some searching leads to this 113 page piece of "research" that was no carried out by the UK government of course but rather an "independent researcher" which actually are:
McNeill A, Brose LS, Calder R, Hitchman SC
Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology &
Neuroscience,
National Addiction Centre,
Hajek P, McRobbie H (Chapters 9 and 10)
Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine
A link deeper and you find the actual full paper -> https://www.gov.uk/government/...
This is some people's minds cements the belief that vaping is 95% safer than smoking cigarettes. the author of that "study" which is more like a search on Pubmed gave two key factors for this 95% figure:
That there is less than 5% known carcinogens in vaping (assuming your sucking on the same "juice" and that there is currently no associated health risk.
Read it if you like -> https://www.gov.uk/government/...
So really this thought that vaping is so much healthier has some good concepts behind it what it lacks is proof and data. All we found is that we have no data to say it's unhealthy. If it causes genetic damage or increased mutation that is only apparent many years later we have no clue.
Just think what the tobacco industry is worth. What the vaping industry will be worth...can you honestly beliee they will not pub their weight into anything much like the sugar lobby once did? -in fact we already know the tobacco industry has covered up decades of research and used their expertise to counter anything that made them look bad.
95% healthier...once this flawed concept is in the public's mind it takes another fucking decade to tell them otherwise. Once upon a time Kent cigarettes had asbestos filters that increased cancer rates many times over compared to regular smoking. They were the product of "research" and were thought to be "healthy"...remember that.
Just continue vaping. It's safe. Anything coming out of a miniaturized "fog machine" is so much better for you. Honest.
As an added bonus it's cheaper than your previous addiction platform too!
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
Smoking what? Banana peels?? Is in not incredible that in this day and age the writers would not specify exactly what substance(s) they were referring to? Biomass. Tobacco, presumably, is what this study is about but, alas, we are not privileged in the sacred jargon and omission of funded studies. We peons need not trouble our minds with clearly reported facts. This may seem like nitpicking but it is not. The combustion of cannabis for smoking has never been proven in any way to cause damage to DNA, unless this study claims otherwise. Too bad we are placed behind a wall for morons about exactly what they are really talking about. Actually, the omission is a clever ploy to drag cannabis down with tobacco by subtly omitting the major salient fact of the study. A fact worth billions of dollars.
Indeed. My post was not well-considered.
What causes the DNA damage,
The tobacco,
or
The compounds added to the tobacco to bind the user to a brand?
When I bought smokes I thought I was buying tobacco, but it seems there was a little more.....
Rick B.
How about; If I'm altering my DNA, what superpowers am I likely to develop?
No that's an important question.
"often causing cancer and other diseases" let's quantify this.
437,400
40,000,000
-----------
1.0935% of smokers die from cancer, heart disease, stroke each year
1,486,251
320,000,000
-----------
0.464453% of the general population die from cancer, heart disease, stroke each year
Smokers are 2.35x as likely to die from smoking as the general population.
1,048,851
280,000,000
-----------
0.37458964% of non-smokers die from cancer, heart disease, stroke each year
Smokers are 2.92x as likely to die from smoking as non-smokers.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_mortality/
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adult_data/cig_smoking/
Chance a smoker age 35 and older will not die of C/HD/S in a given year: 98.9065%
70% of smokers will not die of C/HD/S before age 65.
65% of smokers will not die of C/HD/S before age 75.
57% of smokers will not die of C/HD/S before age 85.
50% of smokers will not die of C/HD/S before age 95.
Chance a nonsmoker will not die of C/HD/S in a given year: 99.6254%
89% of non-smokers will not die of C/HD/S before age 65.
86% of non-smokers will not die of C/HD/S before age 75.
83% of non-smokers will not die of C/HD/S before age 85.
80% of non-smokers will not die of C/HD/S before age 95.
Smokers are about 2.5x as likely as non-smokers to die before attaining any age in this range.
http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/retirement/life-age-expectancy-calculator.aspx
A 35 year old, 6 foot, 200 lb male who drinks moderately, has some traffic violations, normal blood pressure checked regularly, and parents who lived to 70 with no problems before 60, has life expectancy:
- 82.3 years if a non-smoker
- 75.3 years if a smoker
Changes that had a similar effect on life expectancy:
- having 1-3 traffic accidents or violations in the last three years
- having high blood pressure but not taking medication to control it
- having three or more alcoholic drinks, one or more times a week
- gaining 80 lbs
I was not able to find much information on light vs heavy smoking; however, it appears that light smoking (roughly under two packs per week long-term) does reduce some of the risks associated with smoking.
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/121/13/1518
As it hasn't been my experience. This has a LOT to do with lifestyle changes, and most ex-smokers don'tmake them, they simply stop smoking and continue to ingest all the myriad of other carcinogens they like. Your cells don't differentiate between carcinogens, your heart doesn't. It is a proven fact that the lungs can completely regenerate after quitting smoking, so it goes with the rest of the cells if the destructive factors are eliminated. Forget about DNA, there is so much junk science these days, i have to wonder if people are being born with less brain cells
...but Fu Manchu.
If you read the original article, the simply state that they can document methlyation changes to DNA. For all we know, the body may be doing this methylation to help repair damage or neutralize toxins. The conclusion that "smoking damages DNA" is unfounded.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Its easy to quit smoking .. I've tried several times.
You really need to Google that quote. You're so far off it doesn't even make sense.
The problem with ovaries is that women are born with all the eggs they're ever going to have, so you can rack up years or decades of exposure.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Are such DNA changes hereditary? i.e. does a smoker pass damaged DNA on to their kids (at conception)?
During my obligatory service in the army I've spent a half the time working in the office with chain smokers.
It took me months to stop wheezing and coughing when I came out of the uniform.
Basically, I was smoking a pack or two a day just sitting there.
A close neighbor (as in close family friends) died from cancer recently. Never quit smoking though.
He'd call me up often to do tech support and being eager to know but lacking tech skills (or knowledge of English) he'd have a lot of questions.
So I'd often spend hours explaining stuff.
Meanwhile, he and his wife would go through a pack or two. I'd literally have to take a shower after coming home cause I was reeking of tobacco.
At his wake, sitting in the same small room with friends and relatives, most of them smoking, at one moment I literally felt getting dizzy from all the smoke.
Second hand smoking is not passing by someone for "brief few seconds" on a crowded street" who just happens to exhale smoke.
It's sitting there and inhaling smoke for hours cause other people can't handle their addiction.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Your response doesn't exactly address the concern: are these changes heritable?
There is evidence to suggest that they are transmitted to offspring, maternally and possibly paternally:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...
"These data suggest that prenatal exposure to tobacco smoke is associated with reproducible epigenetic changes that persist well into childhood."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... ... Striking concordance was found between the pattern of prenatal smoking associated DNAm among preschool aged children... These DNAm changes appear to be tobacco-specific."
"Here we assessed whether these infant [DNA methylation (DNAm)] patterns are detectable in early childhood, whether they are specific to smoking, and whether childhood DNAm can classify prenatal smoke exposure status.
Pay-walled review of the literature from Feb 2016:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...
"Paternal smoking and germ cell death: a mechanistic link to the effects of cigarette smoke on spermatogenesis and possible long-term sequelae in offspring"
It's not clear at this time whether they are transmitted to the third generation.
So the main effect of the smoking-related-methylation is to stop those genes getting replicated? I presume missing genes means missing proteins... but if neighbouring cells produce them, it won't cause much of a problem? What else can go wrong from missing genes in an individual cell?
Also, what is transcribed instead of the methylated group, out of interest?
Sorry, my biology education sucked.
"genetic footprints left by smoking fade after five years if people quit, some appear to stay there forever. "
Ill find who's leaving footprints on my dna and throw blue berries at them or maybe acai berrys
Or it activates a gene and turns you into...Smokeman! Able to drive people away with a single puff.
Sorry, but is Yet Another Muslim Attack. Studies from 1971? BEFORE COMPUTERS? Nothing more suspicious! These researches do not understand there ARE groups of interest, RELIGIOUS INTEREST, who will thwart results, and those are NOT CONTROLLED. Plenty of substances forbid by the FDA in the same period, eh? Were they tested for methylation? Problem is, HUMAN IS THE ANIMAL WHO SMOKES and we ve been smoking since Fire was harnessed by Humans, ie, since Humans are Humans and started cooking food. Some PCP sugar in your coffee sugar mix, anyone? No idea... - djb
Um... There's no such thing as "junk DNA". That's outdated science.
It only looks useless when you lay the DNA "ladder" out flat for study. But when scientists finally considered the location of that "junk" in relation to its natural position in a closed *spiral* with the "not-junk" genes, it became clear that the "junk" is used in epigenetic expression. Meaning that it's used to switch various genes on and off according to stuff we encounter in the environment.
Much of the "junk" then, is past solutions to problems that will re-express themselves in times of famine or other stresses on the body.
But, are the ovaries exposed to the carcinogens that are found in smoke? As far as I understood, the lungs are mostly what is affected, not the ovaries. How would the carcinogens even get to the ovaries?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
You'd be wrong. If you thought about it, even nicotine manages to get into the bloodstream and through the blood-brain barrier. If the various toxins didn't get elsewhere in the body, it would be kind of hard for them to cause pancreas, bladder, kidney, cervix, and stomach cancer, and acute myeloid leukemia (bone marrow cancer), or to show up in the urine.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Now they can tell if you are a tobacco virgin!
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
What if smoking actually improves evolution and it has no adverse conditions?
I guess we will find out soon enough...