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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.
Smoke if you want to be a super hero.
There have been studies for years that have proven that smoking kills. They have been called "cancer sticks" for decades. But regardless of the fact that people know that smoking kills people just keep on smoking and burning their money away.
You can't cure stupid.
"The public health authorities never mention the main reason many Americans have for smoking heavily, which is that smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide." - Kurt Vonnegut
"Here's the news: I am going to sue the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company, manufacturers of Pall Mall cigarettes, for a billion bucks! Starting when I was only twelve years old, I have never chain-smoked anything but unfiltered Pall Malls. And for many years now, right on the package, Brown & Williamson have promised to kill me. But I am eighty-two. Thanks a lot, you dirty rats. The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon." - Kurt Vonnegut
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I wonder how cannabis compares. There is no way smoking small particulate matter of any kind is healthy, and while it isn't as carcinogenic as tobacco, I would be extremely surprised to see if it didn't have long term health effects on the lungs. Only time will tell.
You're right, but with any kind of decent pot, how much do you have to smoke? With any of the high test shit from California or Colorado, one hit and you're seriously high.
Even as a carefree college student, I maybe peaked out at 8-10 one hits per day on a really carefree day, like some weird Saturday when there was no homework and a serious party atmosphere. Your typical responsible person with a job or even me in college most days? 1 to 3 one hits in the evening after work? That should have most people plenty stoned.
Now compare that to a serious smoker pulling down an entire pack (or more) of cigarettes per day. By about the third or forth cigarette, you're way past whatever pot could do.
Now of course, there are compulsive pot smokers who smoke much more, but I figure a compulsive pot smoker would have to be smoking 5 or more joints a day to compare to a pack a day smoker. I just don't see how you could do that with most of the pot in circulation these days, especially in places where its legal or nearly so and is really strong.
I quit smoking by using a vape and gradually toning down the nicotine levels in the fluid from 18mg to 0mg. After that I found myself using the vape less and less until finally I quit that too.
For anyone who doesn't smoke, don't start smoking OR vaping. If you are already a smoker, I wholeheartedly recommend giving vaping a try.
You're likely trolling, but there are probably some people whose cognitive dissonance is going to actually take that as a reason to continue smoking.
Mutations are random changes. Connect some random wires to your motherboard. Not all new circuits are going to be bad, some can be beneficial!
Evolution has been undergoing trial and error for billions of years. You're at peak fitness. Er... from a genetics perspective. Messing with stuff at random at this point is going to, in the vast majority of cases, do nothing. Of the remainder, the vast majority is going to be bad.
Finally, this is mutations at a cellular level, not system wide. If you changed some genes at random prior to birth, there would be an extremely small number that would help you out a little, though probably with side effects like +1 malaria resistance but -30 health in the form of sickle cell anemia. However, mutations in individual cells will at best kill that individual cell. At worst, it will evolve the cell. Evolution at the cellular level within a massively multicellular organism like yourself turns out to be cancer. Those individual cells are very strong compared to the others. Strong enough to rebel and kill you.
TLDR: No, there is no "minority" of beneficial mutations here. None. Zero.
How many mutation does a non smoker get during a year? The comparison would be interesting.
"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.
Most of us just vape and eat edibles these days. Burning plant matter is passe
That's complete BS. First, there is no oil whatsoever in eliquids. Second, vaporisers work by heating a coil which heats cotton wicked with eliquid. If it were burning, you would certainly know it because you would be getting dry hits.
Perhaps you shouldn't talk about things that you don't understand.
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.
There was a recent study that showed MOST models of vaporizers still burn the nicotine oil to "vaporize" it. So you're still releasing most the same exact carcinogens, plus you're inhaling burning baby oil. Maybe this is not so safe after all. (Don't ask for a citation. It was posted here on /., find it yourself.)
You do realise alot of the bad stuff is added to the tobacco or is in the paper for various reason. It's not just the nicotine which is relatively harmless on its own.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Vaping != burning. Vaping = boiling. When vaping = burning, your device is dry and the user definitely can tell.
Karnal
Remember that mutations aren't all bad mutations. A minority of mutations are beneficial. Evolution keeps score.
Is the risk of losing a lot greater than the chance of winning? Hell, yes, but we don't ban lottery tickets for that reason either.
If you're hoping that smoking a cigarette will turn you into spider man you're out of luck. You need a radioactive spider for that.
If a mutation occurred in a cell in a lung that had some benefit, it would just be in that one cell, it wouldn't spread to your body. There is no tangible benefit from a positively mutated single cell in your lung. So no benefit from lung cell mutation. However, we already know the bad that can happen, I won't even describe that.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
While you're largely correct, it isn't quite true that the immune system has no impact on cancer. Your T cells are involved in cell mediated immune response and clear out cells that are precancerous or infected with viruses. Cancer occurs when the T cells are depleted by disease and cannot kill off the precancerous cells or once the precancerous cells mutate sufficiently that they can reproduce uncontrolled while simultaneously evading the immune response. So, if the cells are reproducing uncontrolled but continue to respond when the T cells inform the cells they should kill themselves, you don't have cancer... but you're more at risk than someone who doesn't have uncontrolled growth. Once they stop responding to the apoptosis inducers and/or the T cells can't recognize them as being off, then you have a problem.
I wonder how cannabis compares. There is no way smoking small particulate matter of any kind is healthy, and while it isn't as carcinogenic as tobacco, I would be extremely surprised to see if it didn't have long term health effects on the lungs. Only time will tell.
Curiously enough, the non-biased studies seem to show that cannabis does NOT seem to contribute significantly to COPD, and may even be ANTI-carcinogenic. I know it seems impossible, but them's the facts.
Even the Canadian Medial Association Journal stated in 2009, Article "Does smoking marijuana increase the risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease?" that "Given the consistently reported absence of an association between use of marijuana and abnormal diffusing capacity or signs of macroscopic emphysema, we can be close to concluding that smoking marijuana by itself does not lead to COPD."
And, as far as Marijuana smoking causing Cancer, even the most pedestrian of Medical Resources, WebMD, are saying publicly there is no causal link between Pot smoking and increased Cancer risk, even for the heaviest of smokers. "The heaviest marijuana users in the study had smoked more than 22,000 joints, while moderately heavy smokers had smoked between 11,000 and 22,000 joints.
While two-pack-a-day or more cigarette smokers were found to have a 20-fold increase in lung cancer risk, no elevation in risk was seen for even the very heaviest marijuana smokers."
And yet, Marijuana is STILL listed as a Schedule 1 NARCOTIC in the U.S....
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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