Everybody knows that cigarettes contain numerous carcinogens. Carcinogens are dangerous substances know to induce cancer in humans and animals based on informtion from clinical and lab studies. Now new research finds that cigarette smoking is dangerous in another way. The nicotine contained in tobacco, which is not carcinogenic, may actually bind to cancer cells and promote growth.
Results from a study at the University of Florida in Tampa were published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. In the study scientists looked at the effects of nicotine on cancer cell growth and replication.
They saw that nicotine binds to cancer cells and encourages or promotes replication and growth. Nicotine did not show any signs of initiating the changes in normal healthy cells needed to change a cell into cancer. The authors state that is left up to the carcinogenic compounds added to cigarettes.
So for smokers who have been breathing in toxic chemicals, small changes may have occured in bronchial and lung cells that signal tumor induction. And once these changes happen, nicotine can come in and bind and promote growth of the cells that are now cancerous.
And what may be alarming is that the nicotine does not have to be from cigarettes to cause growth in these cancerous cells. Nicotine from chewing gum or patches that people use to help kick the habit can still promote growth of cancer once the changes have been initiated by carcinogens in cigarettes.
This may be bad news for smokers. Cancer must grow for many years before it becomes recognizable or causes any symptoms in humans. A tumor the size of a bb contains more than a billion cells, and takes years to acheive that growth. But from that point on the tumor can double in size in a matter of days, and become deadly in months.
The authors state that these findings may deter some from the use of nicotine supplements to stop smoking, but some good may have come from this evidence as well. If we know that nicotine receptors on the tumor promote growth, there is a possibility that cancer treatments can use this avenue to stop growth or promote cell death.
There will be more to come on this interesting finding in cancer research.
Posted by Dr. Christina Gutierrez on August 3, 2006 05:41 PM
