Smokers would think that the whole world is out to get them. That is not the case. The scientific community has been for a long time known that smoking causes damage to the lungs (the organ that helps you breathe) and recently I wrote about how accumulation of smoke particulates in the cells that protect you makes them slow and make you susceptible (prone to ) to tuberculosis.
Read : http://abhimanthan.blogspot.co.za/2016/11/smoking-makes-you-prone-to-tuberculosis.html
A new study reported in one of the most prestigious journals "Science" show that smoking causes changes (mutation) in the lung tissue and make you prone to cancer. This study was done in 5243 cancer genomes. The study can be found at : http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6312/618.full
As most of us are aware of the term cancer , which is a disease caused by uncontrolled division of cells and these cells sometimes form aggregates causing further problems to the human physiological function.
Scientists found out that a compound in cigarette smoke benzo[a]pyrene is responsible for causing changes in the lung tissue DNA. These changes also called as "mutations" are detrimental for humans as they can change how our cells behave.
Usually in such studies to identify the differences we have a control which was non-smoker meaning how the DNA looks like in a person that doesn't smoke and compare it to a person that smokes. This leads to identification of what is different.
Smokers versus nonsmokers were compared for lung,
larynx, pharynx, oral cavity, esophageal, bladder,
liver, cervical, kidney, and pancreatic cancers.
They found that if you smoke a pack a day one may develop mutations "approximate
numbers of mutations accumulated in
a normal cell of each tissue due to smoking a pack
of cigarettes a day for a year: lung, 150 mutations;
larynx, 97; pharynx, 39; oral cavity 23; bladder, 18;
liver, 6 "
So the decision is yours. Do you want to subject your cells to these mutation which in time can lead to cancer.
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