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Smoking cigarettes may cause more cases than the two so-called breast cancer genes combined.
Scientists have been intrigued for years by hints that smoking can induce breast cancer. But for every study that purports to show a link between smoking and breast cancer, others fail to demonstrate any association.
Some researches even show that cigarette smoking decreases a woman’s risk of breast cancer. This is unrespectable because smoking causes so many other cancers, such as lung and bladder cancer. The reason for the discrepancy might be related to a complicated interaction among unidentified chemicals present in cigarette smoke.
It might lower estrogen levels in the blood of some women, thereby lowering their risk of breast cancer. Smoking also appears to lower the age at which a woman goes through menopause, which would also lower breast cancer risk because estrogen levels drop at menopause.
Although many previous studies do not implicate smoking as a risk factor for breast cancer, it is still unclear why breast tissue should be resistant to the harmful effects of cigarette smoke. Cigarettes contain roughly 3,600 chemicals, many of which are carcinogens.
These include aryl aromatic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, heterocyclic amines and Nnitrosamines.
Researches show that many of these chemicals spur cells in the milk ducts to become cancerous. Other researches of breast tissue taken from women indicate that human breast tissue responds to the carcinogens in a similar way.
Studies have shown that half of all women are particular sensitive to the carcinogens found in cigarette smoke and so have a higher risk of breast cancer.
Quit smoking can considerably reduce of brest cancer.
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