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.
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