Meanwhile, he cautions people to avoid smoking, especially teenagers. A study last year found teenage smokers are at especially high risk of breast cancer development later in life, he said.
"Teenagers should realize they are inhaling 4,000 chemicals, and these chemicals can do so much harm in the body, not only posing a breast cancer risk but for so many other things," Narayan said. "The consequence of these chemicals is not apparent in one day or two days or in months; it takes years and years for cancers to develop. Once the gene is damaged and sitting there it's going to provide some harmful effect later on."
Jose Russo, M.D., a researcher at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia who has studied how breast epithelial cells transform after exposure to the chemical benzo[a]pyrine, which is found in tobacco smoke, called the UF findings very interesting.
"We found significant alteration in many of the chromosomes in these cells induced by the effect of benzo[a]pyrine," Russo said. "We were the first ones to demonstrate in normal-like epithelial cells this compound produced a transformation. Cigarette smoke condensate contains more than one compound, so the UF experiment is more similar to the way any human being would be exposed to the carcinogens. It mimics the human situation more closely."
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Source:University of Florida