Is it too late to quit? Healthy cells could reduce the risk of lung cancer for ex-smokers

Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute (Cambridge, UK) and UCL (London, UK) have discovered that individuals who had given up smoking had more genetically healthy lung cells compared with current smokers, therefore reducing the risk of developing lung cancer. The study, published in Nature, highlights the benefits of stopping smoking at any age. Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer death in the UK, and smoking tobacco is widely known to significantly increase the risk of lung cancer development, with around 72% of the 47,000 lung cancer cases in the UK caused by smoking. Until now, there has...