Why don’t some “old smokers” get lung cancer? Subvert cognition! Foreign researchers give answers

Old man Zhao is also a half-celebrity in the village. Every time a person came from a distance, bowed half of his body, wearing a ragged padded jacket that was so dirty that it was greasy, always holding a long bong in his hand, with a bulging pipe hanging on it, following him slowly and slowly. The footsteps were shaky, and a “white mist” rose from the top of the head from time to time. When everyone saw it, they didn’t need to recognize it, they knew that it must be the old man Zhao.

Although everyone knows each other, Mr. Zhao’s reputation is not very good. Seeing him, adults will repeatedly warn children, don’t learn from him, that cigarettes are not a good thing, smoking is easy to quit, and if you don’t want to get lung cancer in the future, don’t touch it at all! Hearing this kind of talk a lot, some children think it’s alarmist: “Then why did Grandpa Zhao smoke all his life, but didn’t get lung cancer? Isn’t this still alive and well?

I believe that everyone will meet such one or two “old smokers” who have been smoking for decades in their lives. It is their existence that makes many smokers have the so-called The reason is that I always feel that I can be lucky to be one of them. Even if I smoke more cigarettes, my body is still strong. However, a large number of clinical studies have confirmed that various carcinogens such as nicotine, tar and cadmium in cigarettes can stimulate the canceration of normal cells in the lungs and cause lung cancer. In 2020, my country announced that the number of people who died of cancer was about 3 million, and the death rate of lung cancer accounted for the highest proportion of all cancers, reaching an astonishing 23.8%, and the number of deaths was as high as 710,000, ranking the highest among all cancers. Ranked the first of all cancer deaths!

Since the lethality rate of lung cancer is so high, those lucky enough not to suffer from cancer” Why did the “old smoker” not get cancer? A study in the United States provides the answer.

1. Why do some “old smokers” not get lung cancer?

This year, the American College of Medicine and Shanghai University jointly released a research data, the study showed that although the cause of lung cancer is that harmful substances in cigarettes trigger However, there are some individual smokers, because the strong protection mechanism in the body can effectively limit this mutation, so that lung cells can function normally and will not cause cancer.

In this study, the researchers divided the participants into two groups, the first group had never smoked, and the other group had been Smoking even smokers who smoke up to one pack a day. The researchers compared the mutations in the lung epithelial cells of the two groups of smokers by using an improved sequencing method, the single-cell multiple displacement amplification method, to effectively measure individual cells. This method can determine the coding sequence of the entire genome, so that the mutations in normal cells can be effectively quantified and accurate data can be obtained.

By collecting the lung cell analysis and sequencing of the above-mentioned smoking participants, it was found that as the age continued to increase, The first group of never-smokers also had individuals with mutations in their lung cells, while the second group of regular smokers had a significantly increased incidence of cancerous mutations in their lung cells. Slightly surprising, although the number of cancer mutations in lung cells increases with the number of smokers, when the number of smokers reaches a certain threshold, that is, a pack of cigarettes per day and a smoking history of up to 23 years, The risk of such cell mutations starts to level off again and no longer increases. That is to say, individuals who smoke the most will not be troubled by gene mutations in lung cells, which explains why many “old smokers” who smoke all the year round are fortunately not suffering from lung cancer.

The researchers explained that although individual people smoked a lot, because of the special mechanism of the body, further accumulation of mutations was inhibited, making them in various “smoking is harmful to health” In the voice of the people, they can still “be alone”.

Second, what are the harms of smoking?

Seeing this, I believe that many smokers are smiling, imagining that they can also become the above-mentioned “survivors” with a unique “protection mechanism”. However, Pharmacist Wang would like to remind everyone that not every smoker has the above abilities, and the declaration that “smoking is harmful to health” is still deafening. In general, it is not wise to take risks for a “protective mechanism” with a very low probability, because in addition to increasing the risk of lung cancer, smoking also threatens other aspects of the body, such as the following 3 points.

1. Induce cardiovascular disease

A number of studies have shown that smoking is the One of the predisposing factors of vascular disease, Among the many patients with hypertension and coronary heart disease in China, the proportion of smoking patients is as high as 75%%, and the mortality rate of smokers is 6 times higher than that of non-smokers. Carcinogens such as carbon monoxide, nicotine and tar in cigarettes will damage vascular endothelial cells after entering blood vessels, increase blood cholesterol, increase the risk of atherosclerosis, and even increase the chance of sudden death.

2. Affect fertility

Nowadays, male fertility has fallen off a cliff, and smoking is one of the reasons. Nicotine in cigarettes can damage the quality of sperm, not only greatly reducing the number, but also causing damage to testicular function, leading to male infertility. In addition, other studies have shown that the probability of congenital malformation in children of non-smoking fathers is about 0.8%, while the rate of teratogenicity in children of fathers who smoke 1-10 cigarettes a day increases to 1.4%. Therefore, for the sake of your own next generation, you should also quit smoking in time.

3. Harmful to brain health

Studies in the UK have shown that smoking can speed up the brain Aging, reduced cognitive abilities. Smoking itself tends to cause high blood pressure, which may accelerate the relationship between stroke and brain state. Therefore, for your brain health, it is recommended to quit smoking in time.