Lung cancer is rare without smoking or radon or articulate measures such as being exposed to arsenic in mining, and other things like that. More than 90%, some say as many as 97%, of lung cancer is related to smoking. Clearly, not everyone who smokes gets lung cancer. It is a vulnerability, so if your father developed it, or your mother developed it, you may have a risk for it, but the heat and inflammation caused by smoking, and the particulates caused by smoking set up an inflammatory reaction that in specific DNA triggers cancer.
Another way to think about the smoking-lung cancer connection: Smoking accounts for about 90% of all cases of lung cancer, and lung cancer is the primary cause cancer-related deaths in the U.S. So, if you don't want lung cancer, don't smoke. It's as simple as that. And if you do smoke, quit. Not smoking isn't a guarantee that you won't get lung cancer, but it will lower your chances significantly.
Lung cancer occurs most often in people over 50 who have smoked cigarettes for a long time. The more you smoke and the longer you smoke, the greater your risk of lung cancer.
But it's never too late to quit. If you stop smoking, your risk decreases steadily each year. That's because your body replaces the damaged cells with normal ones. However, the risk never completely returns to the same risk as that of people who never smoked. Since stop smoking (smoking cessation) efforts in the United States have been reasonably successful, lung cancer is now very often thought of as a disease of former smokers.
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Important: This content reflects information from various individuals and organizations and may offer alternative or opposing points of view. It should not be used for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. As always, you should consult with your healthcare provider about your specific health needs.