How long do you have to smoke cigarettes before you get lung cancer?
Unfortunately there is no simple answer to this. Doctors have discovered it depends on your genes and other environmental factors as to how long before you are at risk.Some people have a gene that means that they are very much at risk of developing lung cancer. This could mean that only 6 months worth of smoking will seal their fate. Others could smoke for 60 years and still not get it.Remember that lung cancer can be caused by other things too. Not only smokers get it.If you think to yourself that you can smoke for a year and then quit and never feel any effects from it - you are kidding yourself!AnswerAs mentioned above the risk is heavily influenced by numerous environmental and genetic factors in addition to quantity and duration of tobacco exposure. The risk of getting cancer is stochastic, comparable to asbestos or uranium exposure, however working forwards from carcinogenicity and metabolism data (NNN NNK and NNAL, ignoring side-stream and secondhand smoke), I estimate that ON AVERAGE 30 cigarettes a day for 14 months, 20 cigarettes a day for 22 months, or 10 cigarettes a day for 41 months will produce a lung tumor. Lung cancer has a 85% chance of being fatal within 5 years.There are a dozen other serious health problems that will occur even at lower dosages, including many other serious cancers. Technically only 0.0000004 cigarettes is considered "safe" to inhale (based on pollution standards). Second-hand smoke appears to be several times as dangerous, so it is likely those "one-in-a-million" smokers who live to see old age have done some serious damage to their friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, and even pets.I calculated this because I was curious about the toxicity of tobacco (looking for a biochemical way to reduce it, found none) after having witnessed the prevalence of cigarettes and cigars in Holland. About 40% of the students in their 20s (in the area where I stayed) were addicted to cigarettes and could not stop despite trying several times (paradoxically, legal cannabis use was 15%-20% and easy to quit). As a general trend, tobacco smokers and bystanders in their parents generation seem to come down with cancer in their 30s and die from it by their 50s. There also seems to be a very high incidence of emphysema even among non-smokers (confirmed, 2nd highest emphysema deaths in the world!).AnswerSome people can smoke 40 cigarettes a day for 60/70 years & never get cancer. There is no set time frame for when cancer will occur or if you will get cancer. However it does increase your risk significantly of heart disease & lung disease later on in life. Quit smoking for your own good. There is a very easy way to not get cancer.... ready for this?....... Dont smoke. :)*******It ain't quite as simple as that! Just about everything has been linked to one type of cancer or another - sunshine, skimmed milk, full fat milk, paracetamol, talcum powder, alcohol, fluorescent lighting, Vitamin K, caffeine, asbestos, radon gas, owning a colour TV, grapefruit, sex(!).....Not smoking may significantly significantly reduce the risk but will not eliminate the risk entirely. The IARC (part of the World Health Organisation) lists nearly 1,000 carcinogens.That's a load of complete and utter tosh. We are lead to believe that smoking causes 90% of lung cancer cases yet the average age of diagnosis of lung cancer is over 70. Whichs means that non-smoking lung cancer victims live to an average age of around 300!As for the deaths of 'bystanders', of the 100+ studies on second hand smoke and lung cancer, only around 15% have produced statistically significant evidence (not proof). Some have suggested a statistically significant BENEFIT, particularly for children. The increased risk in the carefully cherrypicked studies is alleged to be 25%, which by normal epidemiological standards is effectively zero. And that is for 'spousal' exposure (i.e 24x7 in the home) over a period of decades.
