Air pollution has been linked to areas of DNA mutations that lead lung cancer, in a study of people who were diagnosed with the disease despite the lack of smoked tobacco.
The results help from an investigation in cancer patients all over the world to clarify the reason for never smoking them High percentage Among the people with cancer, researchers call the researchers a “urgent and growing global problem.”
Professor Lomel Alexandrov, a senior study author at the University of California in San Diego, said researchers noticed the “problematic trend” but they did not understand the reason.
He said: “Our research shows that air pollution is strongly associated with the same types of DNA mutations that we usually link to smoking.”
Scientists analyzed the entire genetic code for lung tumors removed from 871 smokers in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia as part of Sherlock lung study. They found that the higher the levels of air pollution in the region, the more clear the cancer in the population tumors.
Microbial air pollution was especially associated with mutations in the TP53 gene. This has already been associated with tobacco smoking.
People who were exposed to air pollution also had shorter telomeres, protective strokes of DNA at the ends of chromosomes, which are often compared with covers on the shoe. The early default of Telomers is a sign of the division of the most speedy cells, and it is a distinctive feature of cancer.
“This is an urgent and growing global problem that we are working to understand,” said Dr. Maria Teresa Landy, an epidemic scientist in the American citizen. cancer Institute in Maryland.
With smoking in a decrease in many parts of the world, including the United Kingdom and the United States, people who have never smoked a greater percentage of lung cancer patients. Current estimates indicate that 10-25 % of lung cancers are now diagnosed in this group. Almost all of these cancers are a form known as glandular cancer.
Lung cancer is still the main cause of cancer -related death all over the world. About 2.5 million new cases are diagnosed worldwide every year. More than a million deaths occur in China, where smoking, air pollution and other environmental pollutants are factors.
recently research I found that the highest rates of glandular cancer due to air pollution were in East Asia. While cases in the United Kingdom were much lower, they still reach more than 1,100 new diagnoses a year.
The latest work, It was published in natureI only set a slight rise in cancer mutations in people exposed to transverse tobacco smoke.
However, the study highlighted a great danger from some Chinese herbal drugs containing ancoloshic acid. Signatures associated with herbal medicines were seen almost exclusively in smokers from Taiwan.
Landy said that the signature of another mysterious mutation was seen in people who never smoked but not those who did so, and it was now the focus of “intensive investigation.”
