Why doesn’t everyone get cancer after smoking cigarettes? Cambridge University’s research revealed the secret

New Delhi. Smoking is considered to be the biggest cause of lung cancer, but a surprising thing is that not every smoker gets this fatal disease. At the same time, many people become vulnerable to cancer who have never even touched a cigarette in their life. Now a new research has found the answer to this puzzle.

genes do the whole game

According to this study published in the prestigious ‘Nature’ journal, researchers from Cambridge University found that the genetic makeup inherited by a human being determines how his body will fight the damage caused to DNA by smoking, strong sunlight or other harmful elements. Simply put, despite similar risk factors, not every person has the same risk of developing cancer.

The senior author of the research clearly said that cancer is not just a coincidence. Although the end result of tumor formation may look the same in different people, the path to getting there is strongly influenced by their genetic characteristics.

This is how the experiment was done on rats

For this study, scientists kept mice with different genetic characteristics in a controlled environment and gave them equal doses of the cancer-causing chemical diethylnitrosamine (DEN) at the same age. After this, the genome of about 600 tumors was thoroughly examined. The results were surprising…the process of cancer formation was not the same in all mice. Due to different genetic makeup, the changes in DNA and the way the tumor grew were also completely different.

In future, treatment will be according to genes

Researchers believe that this discovery will pave the way for cancer diagnosis and ‘precision medicine’ in the future, i.e. treatment according to the genetic makeup of each person. This means that now the risk will not be estimated just by looking at the smoking record, but the genetic background of the person will also play an important role in assessing the risk.

However, experts have also warned that this research should not at all mean that smoking is safe. Tobacco remains the leading and most preventable cause of lung cancer. Genetic protection may reduce the risk in some people, but it does not completely eliminate the risk from tobacco.

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