Study: Smoking can permanently damage DNA
A new study published Tuesday finds that most DNA damage caused by smoking reverses itself five years after a person quits, but changes in at least 19 genes can last decades.
The team studied 16,000 people, with some participating in studies as far back as 1971. They supplied blood samples, shared their health histories, and filled out questionnaires regarding smoking, diet, and lifestyle. Researchers discovered that smokers had a pattern of methylation, an alteration of DNA that can change how a gene functions, affecting more than 7,000 genes. While researchers found that after people quit, most of the DNA damage disappears after five years, some genes, including the TIAM2 gene linked to lymphoma, still had changes caused by smoking 30 years later.
"Our study has found compelling evidence that smoking has a long-lasting impact on our molecular machinery, an impact that can last more than 30 years," Roby Joehanes of Hebrew SeniorLife and Harvard Medical School told NBC News. "The encouraging news is that once you stop smoking, the majority of DNA methylation signals return to never-smoker levels after five years, which means your body is trying to heal itself of the harmful impacts of tobacco smoking." Writing in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics, researchers said that by finding affected genes not previously associated with smoking, they could be used to determine who is at risk of developing diseases caused by smoking in the future. They could also be used to create new drugs to treat damage caused by cigarette smoke. Every year, more than 480,000 Americans are killed by smoking, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
-
Magazine interactive crossword - May 3, 2024
Puzzles and Quizzes Issue - May 3, 2024
By The Week US Published
-
Magazine solutions - May 3, 2024
Puzzles and Quizzes Issue - May 3, 2024
By The Week US Published
-
Magazine printables - May 3, 2024
Puzzles and Quizzes Issue - May 3, 2024
By The Week US Published
-
Blind people will listen to next week's total eclipse
Speed Read While they can't see the event, they can hear it with a device that translates the sky's brightness into music
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Melting polar ice is messing with global timekeeping
Speed Read Ice loss caused by climate change is slowing the Earth's rotation
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
An amphibian that produces milk?
speed read Caecilians, worm-like amphibians that live underground, produce a milk-like substance for their hatchlings
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Jupiter's Europa has less oxygen than hoped
speed read Scientists say this makes it less likely that Jupiter's moon harbors life
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Why February 29 is a leap day
Speed Read It all started with Julius Caesar
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
US spacecraft nearing first private lunar landing
Speed Read If touchdown is successful, it will be the first U.S. mission to the moon since 1972
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Scientists create 'meaty' rice for eco-friendly protein
Speed Read Korean scientists have invented a new hybrid food, consisting of beef muscle and fat cells grown inside grains of rice
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
New images reveal Neptune and Uranus in different colours than originally thought
Speed Read Voyager 2 images from the 1980s led to 'modern misconception'
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published