AboutMichael Dean Expertise Can answer
General information on tobacco addiction, and resources for quitting.
Information on current cancer research and the health effects of tobacco.
The risk of smoking for lung cancer and other cancers, as well as SIDS, heart disease, and vision loss.
The best place to start is 1-800-QUIT-NOW
Cannot answer
Specific medical questions
Experience Cancer Researcher for over 20 years
Author of the book "Empty Cribs-The impact of smoking on child health" www.artsciencepub.com.
Author of over 200 scientific articles on cancer, genetics and human disease.
Multiple interviews in print, TV and radio media.
Organizations American Association for Cancer Research
American Association of Human Genetics
Publications Scientific journals (Science, Nature, NE Journal Medicine, etc.)
Scientific American, Discovery Medicine, Nature Reviews in Cancer
Education/Credentials PhD. in Biochemistry from Boston University School of Medicine
Awards and Honors Young Investigator award-American Association of Cancer Research
Expert: Michael Dean Date: 9/24/2007 Subject: Is quitting smoking bad for you?
Question My girlfriend had the same concern as the person who asked "if someone who has smoked a long time stops smoking, does their risk of cancer increase?" Your response of "no"(http://en.allexperts.com/q/Quitting-Smoking-2258/Quiting-smoking-causes-cancer.h...) is contradicted on another page (http://baabmallya.sulekha.com/blog/post/2006/10/does-quitting-smoking-cause-canc...). Could you please look into this further and let me and the original question asker on the first link know if this other article is legitimate? It took me a while to find that one article, but I'm no expert, so I’m sure there are more. They may just not be as available, because it would imply that it's unhealthy to quit smoking, and no one really wants to try and prove that. Thank you.
Ben Torres
Answer Dear Ben,
I was surprised when this question first came in.
I looked up the source, and it is a correspondence to a journal called Medical Hypothesis:
Are lung cancers triggered by stopping smoking?
Medical Hypotheses, Volume 68, Issue 5, 2007, Pages 1176-1177
Arunachalam Kumar, Kasaragod B. Mallya and Jairaj C. Kumar
So this is not a scientific study but is an observation from a group of clinicians in India.
To be considered seriously the topic would have to be looked at in a careful study and published in a peer-reviewed journal.
I think the observation is flawed as they are only looking at people that have cancer. What you need to do is follow a large group of quitters and see if they get cancer more or less often than smokers that keep smoking. Many smokers may decide to quit when they start feeling some pain or early signs of cancer. Many cancer patients will have recently quit by chance.
Here is a large study of quitters in Japan that clearly showed a lower cancer risk in the quitters:
Cancer Sci. 2007 Apr;98(4):584-9. Decrease in risk of lung cancer death in Japanese men after smoking cessation by age at quitting: pooled analysis of three large-scale cohort studies.
Wakai K, Marugame T, Kuriyama S, Sobue T, Tamakoshi A, Satoh H, Tajima K, Suzuki T, Tsugane S.
Division of Epidemiology and Prevention, Aichi Cancer Center Research Institute, 1-1 Kanokoden, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8681, Japan. wakai@med.nagoya-u.ac.jp
Bottom line. Tell your girlfriend that all evidence says that you are better off quitting and the sooner the better.
I hope this helped,
Mike
Michael Dean, Ph.D.
Author "Empty Cribs-The Impact of Smoking on Child Health"
http//www.artsciencepub.com
