Female smokers more vulnerable to colon cancer - forskning.no

(Illustration: Colourbox.com)

It shows the results of a new study of Norwegian data .

Norway is among the countries in the world with the highest incidence of cancers of the intestine.

findings tell true that smokers of both sexes are at increased risk for severe disease, compared with non-smokers.

But women who smoke firm has 19 percent increased risk compared with counterparts who never smoke. Male smokers have 8 percent increased risk in relation to smoking.

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In addition, the results suggest a 50 percent increase in risk for women who started smoking at 16 year olds or earlier.

The same was true of women had smoked for 40 years or more, it is stated in a press release from the American Association for Cancer Research.

Doubled the number of cigarette

Women also seem to be vulnerable even if they smoke fewer cigarettes per day than men, according to the study:

– Women who smoked from 1-9 cigarettes a day had a significant 14 percent increase in colorectal cancer compared to non-smokers.

– Men had to smoke 20 or more cigarettes a day, that is, more than twice as much for a similar increase in risk compared to non-smokers.

says Professor Inger T. Gram in preventive medicine at the University of Tromsø (University of Tromsø), in an email to forskning.no

Gram is also chief physician at the University Hospital of North Norway.

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She believes the discovery of the female moderate smokers says that many new cases of colorectal cancer are due to smoking.

– Since colon cancer is a very frequent malignancies, an increase of 14 percent be many new cancer cases could be avoided, says she continues.

Followed over 14 years on average

More than 600 000 Norwegian men and women from 19 to 67 years included in the study.

It includes data from four previous health surveys over a period from 1972 to 2003, researchers have linked these up against one Another Cancer Registry.

The average follow-up of participants was 14 years.

During this time, it was diagnosed almost 4000 new cases of colon cancer in the sample.

found specific mutations

Over the last 50 years the number of new colon cancer cases increased sharply for both men and women worldwide, says the Norwegian professor.

– What could be the explanation for smoking women increased susceptibility to colon cancer?

– Tobacco seem to result in any particular changes in the cells at the molecular level. These cause certain types of cancer of the large intestine. According to other studies, the changes are found more frequently in women than in men, says Gram.

She said that these changes often be found in the top right-hand ascending part of the colon.

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– It was just the right portion of the intestine we found the difference between men and women, so these results may explain our findings, says Gram.

– Another simpler explanation may be that gut for women are generally smaller than males. The carcinogenic substances from a cigarette will have a slightly higher concentration in the gut in women than in men, writes Gram in the email to forskning.no.

Worn by pointing out the main cause

results of the new study can not finally determine that smoking is a direct cause which alone ensures that a person gets this cancer.

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researchers in the field actually has so far struggled to pin down a main reason, according to the Cancer Registry.

Several different types of factors can play together, for example, lifestyle-related risk factors such as obesity, alcohol consumption and inactivity is considered to increase the risk

as does polyps in the bowel (small benign tumors) that are allowed to remain there and develop without being detected or treated.

Reference:

Ranjan Para July, Eivind Bjerkaas1, Aage Tverdal, Randi Selmer, Loïc Le Marchand, Elisabete Weider Pass and Inger T. Gram. The Increased Risk of Colon Cancer Due Thurs Cigarette Smoking May Be Greater in Women But than . Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. First published in the online version, 30 April 2013, doi: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-12-1351 Summary

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