“If nothing happened so far, it will probably never happen.”
This is how most smokers still think about their habits. Quitting smoking is especially hard when there is no way to measure how much damage it’s causing to the individual’s health. A famous smoking statistic is that every cigarette shortens your life in about 15 minutes - a scary, but highly subjective number.
Cancer is one of the most dangerous hazards smoking can cause on a smoker’s health. This is due to tobacco smoke, which contains over 7000 different chemicals, 70 of them known to cause cancer. (The Verge) This is scary enough on its own, but since it usually takes years for cancer to develop, smokers keep betting on their luck that nothing will happen.
However, now there is a way to precisely quantify how much every single cigarette gets a smoker closer to cancer.
About the study
An international study by the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the UK's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute along with other collaborators was published today (November 4th). They studied over 5000 cancer patients to understand and identify the mutational signatures caused by tobacco smoking.
This allowed them to quantify the effects of smoking like never before. “Smoking a pack of cigarettes every day for a year would over 150 mutations in every cell of the lung”, said Ludmil Alexandrov in the short video explaining the study.
The DNA mutations aren’t dangerous in themselves, but each mutation could potentially become a cancerous growth. So naturally, the more you smoke, the higher the chances of developing cancer from one of these mutations.
Keep in mind that this also applies to passive smoking. Meaning, if you smoke near children, they are likely to suffer these side effects in a long term span.
The conclusion
We can conclude that getting cancer from smoking is nothing more than a dangerous game of luck. Some people have reportedly smoked their entire lives with little to no side effects, which means the DNA mutations caused by smoking never lead to a cancerous growth, but that’s nothing more than blind luck, and there is no way to prevent it from happening other than to stop smoking entirely.
Tobacco smoking is associated with at least 17 different types of cancer. (EurekAlert)
For smokers who are still free of any serious health problem and want to quit, the sooner the better, as these mutations would cease to happen and they could still live a normal healthy life. It’s never too late to stop: the longest ever study on smoking revealed that “smoking wipes 10 years off a person’s life on average, according to the longest ever study of smokers, but giving up at any age brings huge benefits.” (New Scientist)
If you are a smoker and you want to stop, here are some helpful links:
- How To Stop Smoking - Cancer Research UK
- Guide To Quitting Smoking - American Cancer Society
- 14 Surprising Health Benefits of Quitting Smoking - HealthLine
And always remember:
Smoking is the most preventable cause of cancer. (Cancer Research UK)
Did you know about the hazards of smoking? Are you trying to stop? Let us know your stories on the comments below and stay strong! Follow Datahand on Facebook for more awesome articles every week!
