Scientific+Background


 * How Does Smoking Cigarettes Cause Lung Cancer? **

Many Canadians and people worldwide smoke cigarettes. The people that smoke these cigarettes are at a much greater rate of developing lung cancer then those who do not smoke. The choice of lifestyle that a smoker makes “represents the most significant carcinogenic exposure confronting health services today” (“Nature,” 2010). Lung cancer is often not detected in its early stages because symptoms do not appear until later stages. Lung cancer often spreads to other areas making it a deadly cancer.

According to Nature, “tobacco smoke contains more than 60 mutagens that bind and chemically modify DNA, and these brand the lung cancer genome with characteristic mutational patterns” (2011). A mutagen is a chemical or physical agent that creates change. In this case, the mutagen in tobacco is creating a change in the DNA of the smoker. Tobacco consists of many cancer-causing agents including tar. Health Canada adds “over years of smoking, tar collects and forms a sticky layer which reduces the ability of the lungs to get rid of harmful particles and helps retain the carcinogens present in tobacco smoke” (2009). Tar from smoking is the cause for many bad mutagens. Health Canada suggests, “the development of lung cancer is probably the result of irritation caused by smoking and the accumulation of chemical dusts and particulates” (2009). Irritation in your lungs causes inflammation. The lungs cleansing membrane is slowly being destroyed due to the inflammation. The “replacement scar tissue does not have the same ability to neutralize the harmful cancer-causing particles inhaled in smoke and this leads to the development of cancer cells which can multiply and replace healthy ones” (Health Canada, 2009). Unfortunately, lung cancer is a major killer among smokers.

Below is a video that is informative by looking at how smoking causes lung cancer. The video gives a simple explanation with the use of diagrams and pictures.

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Second hand smoke can also cause lung cancer.

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