Why do so many nonsmokers get lung cancer?
Isn't it true that Americans have been smoking since the early 1600s, and hundreds of millions never got cance, or any Smoking Related Illness?
Cancer - 8 Answers
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1 :
because of the amount of smoker, if non smokers get lung cancer it may be because of them breathing in too much smoke or bad air.
2 :
it's amazing though how many developed cancer decades after they stopped smoking. my grandmother developed mouth cancer about 30 years after she stopped smoking. also people who never smoked developed lung cancer. this is because second hand smoke is more deadly than first hand smoke.
3 :
For the same reason that many who don't work with asbestos got mesothelioma, second-hand exposure. Many toxins can activate cancer, but few are so willingly pulled into our lungs the way tobacco and marijuana are, but the smoker does eventually have to exhale and all the burning chemicals go out into the general air, to mix with air inhaled by others. And before the 20th century, cigarettes were hand-rolled, and thus expensive, making tobacco less affordable to most Americans, but lung cancer rose sharply with industrialization and pre-rolled cigarettes. And tobacco isn't the only thing that causes lung cancer, just the most prevalent among the general populace.
4 :
Because second hand smoke is so toxic, and they are exposed to other carcinogens than cigarette smoke
5 :
Yes, Americans and Europeans have been smoking since the early 1600's. In the first decade of the 1600's, King James I of England wrote a pamphlet reporting his opinion that smoking was harmful to health in many ways. It was the same time that he commissioned the King James version of the bible. It is also true that hundreds of millions have never gotten cancer from smoking. Here's the data : Male smokers - lifetime risk of lung cancer is 1 in 6 Female smokers – the risk of lung cancer is 1 in 9 For Non-smokers of either sex the risk of lung cancer is only 1 in 77. Note the significant difference for non-smokers. Cigarette smoke contains over 60 known carcinogens. The risk increases with amount of exposure – number of cigarettes per day and years of smoking [“pack yearsâ€] Smoking full packs of cigarettes only became common in the industrial era of cigarette manufacturing in the 1900's. Since then, the incidence of lung cancer skyrocketed. I would estimate the the average lung cancer patient has made the conscious personal decision to smoke 350,000 to half a million cigarettes - fully knowing the risk. Cigarettes have been known as "coffin nails" since the 1930's. Cigarette packages have had a warning on each in the USA since 1964. Only one out of two people who smoke develop a smoking related illness that causes death. So the cup is half full or half empty as each may choose to see it. Smoking is a drug addiction more difficult to quit than heroin, but many smokers refuse to see this. Heroin users = bad. Smokers = OK or normal people. That has been our societal perception. ( I can feel the thumbs down descending as I write this.) In 20 years as a cancer doctor I saw hundreds of people with lung cancer. Almost all of them died. Every one was a cigarette smoker. All authorities recognize that at least 85 to 90% of lung cancers are caused by smoking. There are a lesser number caused by second hand smoke or radon or genetics. Only people with blinders on could fail to see the association between smoking and lung cancer. But it is a personal choice. Millions do get away with smoking and die of another disease - one not directly associated with smoking. In my experience, I can't recall any of my patients saying "My bad, I shouldn't have smoked those 500,000 cigarettes." Many want to blame exposure to chemicals in their work environment instead, or they simply deny that their smoking habit could have led to their own demise. We all die of something. If people choose to smoke, they accept a significant risk that it will be lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease, peripheral vascular disease, laryngeal cancer, mouth and throat cancer, esophageal cancer, or bladder cancer. Very few of them are likely to say, "Don't spend Medicare dollars on me. It is my fault, I accept the consequences of my choice to smoke." Tobacco use kills nearly half a million Americans EACH year. [World War II cost less than 300,000 American lives over 4 years.] 1 out of 6 deaths in the U.S. result from smoking. Many clamor for a "cure for cancer" - as if it is one disease rather than 200 plus different diseases. An ounce of prevention would do much better than a cure. We could achieve so much if we could just stop smoking cigarettes. Both U.S. presidential candidates are calling for reduced health care expenditures. Voluntary smoking cessation would save a huge amount of health care dollars. Our smoking behavior cannot be legislated. The U.S. Congress, the Supreme Court, and the president all together cannot make us stop smoking. We have to do this ourselves.
6 :
Tells you Something About the Nature of "Cancer". I Suspect they All Have a Common Motif, DNA Deregulation. Exacerbated With Cell Multiplication. EDIT: One Can Readily See Both These Factors In Smoking.
7 :
Good question, i don't really know maybe is just the quimic that is around them or some toxin in their body or some thing in the DNA. Only God nows.
8 :
No one has mentioned radon gas exposure. Radon soil contamination is quite common in many parts of the country and 20 years of silent exposure from the breakdown of radon gas seeping in from under your house is enough to cause 21,000 known deaths per year in the US alone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radon_gas Most states and counties have mapped the potential radon exposure for their state so you can google your state and radon and often find a map that will tell you if you are in any danger. If you do live in a high radon area you can get a test kit at places like Home Depot or Lowe's and you can have your house protected from radon gas relatively inexpensively by a contractor who specializes in radon protection measures. http://epa.gov/radon/zonemap/idaho.htm http://epa.gov/radon/index.html Radon exposure is probably what caused actor Christopher Reeve's wife Dana, a non smoker, to develop terminal lung cancer at age 44. If you live from the age of infancy to college in a house with high background radon levels then you are already well on your way to potentially developing lung cancer somewhere down the road. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana_Reeve
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