Gene variant linked to smoking longer, Lung Cancer sooner

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis led an analysis of 24 studies involving more than 29,000 smokers of European ancestry and found that smokers with a particular variation in a nicotine receptor gene were more likely to continue smoking for four years after those without the variant had quit. Those with the genetic variant also were more likely to be diagnosed with Lung Cancer four years earlier than those without the variation in the CHRNA5 gene.
"People with the risk variant average a four-year delay in the age at which they quit smoking," said first author Li-Shiun Chen, MD. "Instead of quitting at age 52, which was the average age when study participants with a normal gene stopped smoking, people with the genetic variant quit at age 56."
Chen said those with the gene variant also tend to inhale more deeply when they smoke. That combination of genes and behavior contributes to the development of lung cancer earlier in life.
"They are likely to be diagnosed four years earlier," she said. "In those with lung cancer, the average smoker without the gene variant is diagnosed at age 65. Those with the greater genetic risk tend to be diagnosed at 61."