One puff of smoke can damage DNA...........

cosmictraveler

Be kind to yourself always.
Valued Senior Member
One puff of smoke can damage DNA
Researchers say mutated cells increase risk of cancer, heart disease
Updated: 4:55 p.m. ET Oct. 1, 2004

WASHINGTON - Just one puff of a cigarette could damage a smoker’s DNA, the first step to cancer and heart disease, researchers said on Friday.

It obviously takes more than that to cause disease, but the team at the University of Pittsburgh were surprised at how little smoke it took to do the initial damage.

William Saunders and colleagues studied the effects of real cigarette smoke on human fibroblasts, common cells found in the connective tissue that holds much of the body together.

They exposed batches of growing cells to liquefied cigarette smoke and saw the chromosomes that carry the DNA were pulled apart from both ends.

“Double-stranded breaks are considered the most mutagenic type of DNA damage because the broken ends can fuse to other chromosomes in the cell,” Saunders said in a statement.

This happened with very small amounts of smoke, Saunders said in a statement prepared ahead of a weekend meeting of the Environmental Mutagen Society in Pittsburgh.

Cigarette smoking is known to cause lung cancer and is also linked to bladder, larynx and esophageal cancers, as well as heart disease.

“Unfortunately, no amount of scientific evidence arguing against smoking will get everyone to stop or not begin to smoke in the first place. So, perhaps one long-term goal should be to develop cigarettes that somehow prevent what we’ve seen happen to the cells in our lab,” Saunders said.
Copyright 2004 Reuters Limited.
 
Even it has no harm to my life. I will never smoke because of its smell.
 
And this is just tabacco-smoke,...imagine all that car-exhaust from world-wide-traffic and all that factory-smoke,...

pfiew,...! Don't want to think about that, no! (sarcastic remark)
 
I never saw the point of smoking; I hate it when women smoke, it’s a big turn off
 
I quit smoking nearly three years ago. It takes some will-power and still I have to be on guard sometimes as my mind relativates things, I have to watch out that I don't put smoking in a 'wrong' perspective.

I'm older now,...and wiser.

everyone should be wiser, but the flesh is weak,...I know.
 
Niiice.
Over 60% of total DNA is 'junk' DNA anyways... whohooo...
 
I started smoking when i was 12,im 24 now so its harder to quit,i have tried but i enjoy it.

I dont really,its the addiction,without the nicotine my body goes into withdrawal making me emotionally and physically shitty,so i smoke and i apparently seem to feel better,its of coarse an illusion,but a good one thats why its hard to quit,plus its habitual and becomes a routine,like an obsesive compulsive disorder.

Plus you develop a taste for it over time,if youre a non-smoker youd not understand,when you smoke the weird part is you dont smell it,when i smoke i dont smell what other people are smelling,but when im not smoking and someone else is i notice it,its weird but smoking is different to the smoker.

As to the point,i dunno,its like any drug,whats the point of any drug?

whats the point in alcohol?

why not just drink coca-cola or orange juice,well the point is its how the drug makes you feel,if its addictive youll latch onto it aswell,and nicotine is as addictive a heroin.
 
cato said:
I hate it when women smoke, it’s a big turn off

Whats interesting about what you just said there,is there is a whole underground fetish scene that promotes the opposite of what you say to the EXTREME where models of varying ages smoke in various ways infront of camera and its sold to men who'd pay to watch it,and you can blame hollywood for that for making it part of a sexy image,and its cool to smoke in old time hollywood,you couldnt be james dean or humphrey bogart without a ciggarette in your hand,no way.

I see the appeal,id not say it was a turn off,but at the extreme end,no,its just boring,why would you want to pay £60 for a 1 hour tape of some women smoking? theres no nudity,wheres the porn?,the ones that mix the two...well they are on the money there its not too bad a combination IMO.
 
What a minute

They exposed batches of growing cells to liquefied cigarette smoke and saw the chromosomes that carry the DNA were pulled apart from both ends.

I hate things like this. So LIQUID CIGARETTE SMOKE was APPLIED DIRECTY TO THE CELLS. I am no scientist or lab rat but somehow I think that when you inhale smoke into your lungs it does not become liquified smoke that is applied in the same way as this lab study did.

Yeah we all know smoking is bad for you but ciminy...I cannot see that as a reasonable study. If, in fact, that was all there was to this study.

Oh and to relate to Skullz yeah farmers can't smell the cowshit either but if you aren't on the farm you can sure smell it. :D
 
What's even nastier, in my opinion, is this new gas-ohol that's already been approved by the FDA in the states. It's gaseous alcohol. Leave it to the US to allow the marketing of a more dangerous version of the number one killer.
Unbelievable.
 
SKULLZ said:
I started smoking when i was 12,im 24 now so its harder to quit,i have tried but i enjoy it.

I dont really,its the addiction,without the nicotine my body goes into withdrawal making me emotionally and physically shitty,so i smoke and i apparently seem to feel better,its of coarse an illusion,but a good one thats why its hard to quit,plus its habitual and becomes a routine,like an obsesive compulsive disorder.

Plus you develop a taste for it over time,if youre a non-smoker youd not understand,when you smoke the weird part is you dont smell it,when i smoke i dont smell what other people are smelling,but when im not smoking and someone else is i notice it,its weird but smoking is different to the smoker.

As to the point,i dunno,its like any drug,whats the point of any drug?

whats the point in alcohol?

why not just drink coca-cola or orange juice,well the point is its how the drug makes you feel,if its addictive youll latch onto it aswell,and nicotine is as addictive a heroin.

The point of most non prescribed drugs is to make a profit from someone elses weakness. Illegal drugs only hurt and kill people, they aren't really a very good thing to do to your body. Problem , as has been stated the flesh is very weak and that's why they try and get teenagers "hooked" early on ion life befor they know what the drugs really do to their bodies and minds.
 
cosmictraveler said:
One puff of smoke can damage DNA
Researchers say mutated cells increase risk of cancer, heart disease
Updated: 4:55 p.m. ET Oct. 1, 2004

WASHINGTON - Just one puff of a cigarette could damage a smoker’s DNA, the first step to cancer and heart disease, researchers said on Friday.

It obviously takes more than that to cause disease, but the team at the University of Pittsburgh were surprised at how little smoke it took to do the initial damage.

William Saunders and colleagues studied the effects of real cigarette smoke on human fibroblasts, common cells found in the connective tissue that holds much of the body together.

They exposed batches of growing cells to liquefied cigarette smoke and saw the chromosomes that carry the DNA were pulled apart from both ends.

“Double-stranded breaks are considered the most mutagenic type of DNA damage because the broken ends can fuse to other chromosomes in the cell,” Saunders said in a statement.

This happened with very small amounts of smoke, Saunders said in a statement prepared ahead of a weekend meeting of the Environmental Mutagen Society in Pittsburgh.

Cigarette smoking is known to cause lung cancer and is also linked to bladder, larynx and esophageal cancers, as well as heart disease.

“Unfortunately, no amount of scientific evidence arguing against smoking will get everyone to stop or not begin to smoke in the first place. So, perhaps one long-term goal should be to develop cigarettes that somehow prevent what we’ve seen happen to the cells in our lab,” Saunders said.
Copyright 2004 Reuters Limited.

Lets put all this into some reasonable perspective. (1) of anything can have deliterious affects. Howver, in the case of smoking studies have also sown that (1) BBQ steak can have the damaging affect of 1 carton of cigarettes.

Are you 200 times more prepared to give up your red meat next summer?
 
I dunno i sometimes feel discriminated against cos i smoke.

Its like im second class cos of the colour of my lungs :D
 
They make a bib ado about cigarettes, when companies generate most of the smoke we breathe, and the smog in LA was so bad I vomited, broke out in zits all over my face, and stayed nauseous for seven days. When I went down the street there, I would try to blow out the smog because to a new comer to LA it smells like inhaling diesel fuel. Not to mention the things they are putting in our food, meaning plants and animals. Also, french fries are preserved by the stuff you preserve corspes with. Do we see the growing number of kids with diabetes and cellulite?

They make a big deal about one thing, all the while killing you with the other.
 
The thing I find interesting is that many smokers consume more caffeine than the average person. DNA repair is inhibited by caffeine so it should actually increase the devastating effects of smoking. However, smoking actually reduces the levels of caffeine in the body too so there is a complex dynamic going on!
 
That is facinating John, truly...I have never heard nor read that...huh. I'm going to have to look into that. It might explain a lot of things for me.

Thanks.
 
Are you 200 times more prepared to give up your red meat next summer?

I dunno i sometimes feel discriminated against cos i smoke.

My red meat is not bothering anyone, your cigarettes are. Moreover, you get some good things from a steak along with that bad. Furthermore, if I want to quit steak I will have no chemical addiction so if I happen to have a Vegan girlfriend, or something, who thinks it immoral to eat meat it will be easy to quit.
 
My red meat is not bothering anyone, your cigarettes are.

Ok. I don't know where you are but I'll tell you how it is where I am.
-You cannot smoke in public buildings.
*This is to say, any store I go to I cannot smoke in. Any restaurant, movie theater, on and on...I cannot smoke in.
-You can smoke in your own home.
-You can smoke in bars.
-You can smoke in your vehicle.
-You can smoke outside (but not just any place because there are signs all over)

1. I would hope that if you go into the home of a smoker and complain that they chew you a new ass. It is none of your business whether or not they want to destroy their health. You went in there knowing they smoke so it should not be a point of contention.

2. If you are outside and someone smokes near you and it magically just hovers over you waiting to inject the poison into your lungs, then move.

3. Stop going to bars/clubs/wherever that allow smoking.

Then you will not be bothered by our cigarettes.

Laws have already been created to protect your precious health so you are not in harms way from the filthy and disgusting smokers ok. That is probably all the protection you are going to get without you actively avoiding it.

who thinks it immoral to eat meat it will be easy to quit.

I can respect a person for wanting to change. But you should actually want to change, not change because of someone else's ideals, but your own.

It is possible I give people credit they do not deserve though.
 
cosmictraveler said:
Just one puff of a cigarette could damage a smoker’s DNA, the first step to cancer and heart disease, researchers said on Friday. It obviously takes more than that to cause disease, but the team at the University of Pittsburgh were surprised at how little smoke it took to do the initial damage.
This is horrible science. The people who published this should be sent back to the third grade. Science is about measurement, measurement is the most fundamental tool of science. Without measurement there is no science.

Where are the numbers in this "report?"

Your body has billions of cells. Perhaps trillions -- I haven't counted mine lately. Every time you shave you damage many skin cells and probably, by the law of averages, mutilate the DNA in a couple of them. That's not enough to cause cancer or heart disease. If smoking damages a few cells in your lungs and heart, it may not be enough to cause cancer and heart disease.

For a scientist to come up with an idiotic pronouncement like they "were surprised at how little smoke it took to do the intial damage," is irresponsible and he should lose his job for saying that to a reporter knowing that it's going to be printed in the popular press and be misinterpreted by the American public. A public who is about as uneducated and unsophisticated as it's been at any time in the past hundred years.

I have seen enough reports with real numbers in them during my lifetime, that I believe the statistical conclusion that tobacco is a major health risk. Nonetheless it's the right of every person to perform their own risk management. Tobacco makes people feel better, it always has, that's why it became so popular. Throughout the Third World tobacco is known as "an affordable luxury." When your life is miserable, it may seem better to artificially improve the way you feel, than to prolong your life.

Not to mention, these tests appear to be incomplete. Nobody smokes more than the Japanese and the French, and they have remarkable life expectancies. (As Ozzy Osbourne says, "In France even the dogs smoke.") There's something else at work here besides the tobacco.

I hate tobacco and the smell bothers me and I think kissing a girl who smokes is like licking a dirty ashtray. But that doesn't mean that what is being bandied about in the popular press these days regarding tobacco qualifies as "science."

Science died just about the same time that God came back from the dead, around 1980.
 
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