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Every Year of Smoking Causes About 150 New DNA Mutations That Can Make Cancer More Likely, Says Study (latimes.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Los Angeles Times: For every year that you continue your pack-a-day habit, the DNA in every cell in your lungs acquires about 150 new mutations. Some of those mutations may be harmless, but the more there are, the greater the risk that one or more of them will wind up causing cancer. The threat doesn't stop there, according to a study in Friday's edition of the journal Science. After a year of smoking a pack of cigarettes each day, the cells in the larynx pick up roughly 97 new mutations, those in the pharynx accumulate 39 new mutations, and cells in the oral cavity gain 23 new mutations. Even organs with no direct exposure to tobacco smoke appear to be affected. The researchers counted about 18 new mutations in every bladder cell and six new mutations in every liver cell for each "pack-year" that smokers smoked. The findings are based on a genetic analysis of 5,243 cancers, including 2,490 from smokers and 1,063 from patients who said they had never smoked tobacco cigarettes. The researchers used powerful supercomputers to compare thousands of cancer genome sequences. The computers grouped the sequences into about 20 distinct categories, or "mutational signatures." Mutations tied to five of these signatures were more common in tumors from smokers than in tumors from nonsmokers. One of the signatures involves a specific DNA nucleobase change -- instead of a C for cytosine, there was an A for adenine -- that "is very similar" to the change that occurs in the lab when cells are exposed to benzo[a]pyrene, a compound that the International Agency for Research on Cancer says is carcinogenic to humans. Most of the lung and larynx cancers obtained from smokers had this type of mutation, the researchers reported. They also found that the signature was more common among smokers than nonsmokers. Another mutational signature was characterized by Cs that should have been Ts (thymine) and vice versa. Although these changes can be found in all kinds of cancers, the signature was 1.3 to 5.1 times more common in tumors from smokers than in tumors from nonsmokers, according to the study.
"This is why smoking should be illegal..."
Social opprobrium is what kills off usage of a drug, not the law. Tobacco is less popular today than every drug on the DEA schedule, including heroin. If we put tobacco on the schedule, it would probably become more popular.
If you live long enough you will get cancer, no matter your habits
Sure, we know death is a protection against cancer, but that does not answer the question. We are told smokers get 150 mutation a year, but how much does a non smoker get?
Vaping != burning. Vaping = boiling. When vaping = burning, your device is dry and the user definitely can tell.
Karnal
Speaking as someone with around 3,000 new mutations (I quit a few months ago), I can tell you I've paid in tax on cigarettes about 2 x the cost of any treatment I'll get for the problems it'll cause and of course I'll take out a lot less in pension assuming I make it to 68, which is quite unlikely. So you know, these "massive" costs are actually net benefits if you're going to start accounting.
O RLY? Have you done the math? In the USA, it's taxed federally and locally but that turns out to currently be about $2 per pack (used to be much lower). If you smoke one pack a day for 20 years, that's $14,600 in tax.
I looked up the cost and the typical cost to be an inpatient at a hospital is $1,600 per day. If you are in the hospital, you have eight days to die before you start taking up resources. Now, let's just say you start smoking at age 20 and get cancer after 15 years, so at age 35, you will begin your cancer treatment. You will likely survive a couple years and then die. The cost of the medication to fight cancer is $100,000 per year alone. Your two month decline to dying is going to rack up $96,000. You will expended more than $300,000 after paying $10,950 in cigarette excise tax.
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