By AFPMore by this AuthorWASHINGTONChronic exposure to cigarette smoke can change lung cells over time, making them more vulnerable to disease and priming them to develop cancer, US researchers said Monday. The report in the journal Cancer Cell is based on lab experiments on lung cells that were exposed to chronic cigarette smoke — the equivalent of a person smoking for 20 to 30 years. "When you're smoking, you are building up a substrate of epigenetic changes that we hypothesize are increasing your mathematics for developing lung cancer," said senior author Stephen Baylin, co-director of the Cancer Biology program Johns Hopkins University. "Because if you're not a smoker, your risk of lung cancer is very low." Epigenetic changes do not alter, or mutate, the basic DNA sequence of the gene, suggesting that there is hope for people who want to quit smoking.

Source: Daily Nation September 11, 2017 18:00 UTC