Predicting Which Smokers Will Get Lung Cancer [who want's to know, addicts?]
Cigarette smoke is the leading cause of lung cancer in the United States, accounting for approximately 90 percent of all lung cancer cases. [holy crap!] Unfortunately, at this time, there is no reliable test for predicting which smokers are at highest risk for developing lung cancer. It is also difficult to detect lung cancer at an early stage, when treatment might be more effective. [So, who would smoke anyway if they knew they could without getting lung cancer? What about emphysema? Esophageal cancer? Prostate cancer?]
Now, according to a study published journal Science Translational Medicine, [Translational Medicine sounds made up to me, how about you?] a team of researchers from around the United States has identified a gene pathway that is activated in the airways of people with lung cancer. Cigarette smoke causes injury to the entire respiratory tract and not just the lung. So, these researchers collected normal tissue from the airways of smokers both with and without lung cancer to study early smoking-induced damage. They found that activity of a gene pathway called phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) is significantly increased only in the airway cells of smokers with lung cancer. In addition, the scientists were able to demonstrate that PI3K activation in the airways was associated only with lung cancer, and not with lifetime smoke exposure, smoking status, or presence of other smoking-related lung diseases. [So there ARE other smoking related diseases! That's good to know...]
Lung cancer develops deep in the lungs, but based on the findings of this study, PI3K activation is present even in normal airway cells of smokers with lung cancer. This means that physicians might be able to identify smokers who are at risk for, or already have, lung cancer using a procedure called bronchoscopy to collect cells from their windpipes rather than having to perform more invasive lung tests. It also means that smokers with lung cancer might be diagnosed and treated at an earlier stage of the disease with better outcomes.
[BOTTOM LINE: Smoking is a deadly activity. If it's not lung cancer, it will be something else. How many times has looking for a short cut taken twice as long or been twice as hard then if you just did the thing you were trying to avoid. I wonder how many of these translational doctors smoke. There's no safe way to smoke and there's no way around the fact that you're not the 90 year old Russian lady who's been smoking since she was 12 and can still lift a small cow over her head. There's a word for people like that... mutants! You are not Wolverine. Smoking will lead to your premature death. So, if you like committing a passive aggressive for of suicide, keep at it. If on the other hand you're ready to shed the shackles of Big Tobacco and reclaim your health and freedom, pick up a copy of my book, How To Stop Smoking Without Killing Anyone. Take back your self control, your health and response-ability]
