3.22 Genetic influences on tobacco-caused disease

Show / hide chapter menu

3.0 Background

3.1 Tobacco—a leading preventable cause of death and disease

3.2 Cardiovascular diseases

3.3 Lung cancer

3.4 Respiratory diseases

3.5 Other cancers caused by or associated with smoking

3.6 Reproductive health and smoking

3.7 Pregnancy and smoking

3.8 Infant health and smoking

3.9 Increased susceptibility to infection in smokers

3.10 Eye diseases

3.11 Dental diseases

3.12 Gastrointestinal diseases

3.13 Bone density and risk of fractures

3.14 Effects of smoking on the skin

3.15 Smoking and complications in medical treatment

3.16 Smoking and diabetes

3.17 Poorer levels of general health

3.18 Smoking, motor vehicle crashes and other injuries

3.19 Burns and fires caused by tobacco use

3.20 Tobacco poisoning

3.21 Health effects for younger smokers

3.22 Genetic influences on tobacco-caused disease

3.23 Smoking, dementia and cognitive decline

3.24 Lung disease, smoking and occupational exposures

3.25 Air pollution, cigarette smoking and ill health

3.26 Health effects of smoking brands that claim to deliver lower levels of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide

3.27 Health effects of smoking tobacco in other forms

3.28 Health 'benefits' of smoking?

3.29 Morbidity (ill health) attributable to tobacco-caused disease

3.30 Deaths attributable to tobacco by disease category

3.31 Morbidity and mortality due to tobacco-caused disease and socioeconomic disadvantage

3.32 Health effects of smoking other substances

3.33 Health effects of chewing tobacco, and of other smokeless tobacco products

3.34 Public perceptions of tobacco as a drug, and knowledge and beliefs about the health consequences of smoking

3.35 Health benefits of cessation

3.36 The global tobacco pandemic

Acknowledgments

References

There is evidence that the development of tobacco-caused disease may be mediated by the influence of an individual's genetic make-up.123–125 If confirmed, this means that someone with a genetic susceptibility to heart disease (or lung cancer or any of the other many diseases caused by smoking) could be at higher risk of developing these diseases if they smoke, and conversely, that some individuals may theoretically be at less risk of developing certain diseases. These findings have given rise to some debate about whether genetic screening might usefully contribute to the prevention of tobacco-caused disease,126, 127 but the concept of genetic screening to ascertain individual risk of developing tobacco-related disease is considered to be impractical for the following three reasons:

• Firstly, it is likely that many different genes, each contributing only a small portion of the overall risk, influence a smoker's individual risk of developing a particular disease which is caused by smoking. As discussed throughout this chapter, it is already well understood that smokers have a much higher risk than non-smokers of developing many conditions. Given this, it may be that being able to assess an individual smoker's personal risk of developing disease is in fact not much more informative than predicting risk simply on the basis of being a smoker.127
• Secondly, smoking is the cause of many different diseases. Even to test smokers for susceptibility to the most commonly caused diseases such as cardiovascular disease, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, would mean screening for a large number of polymorphisms (common, naturally occurring variations in a gene, DNA sequence or chromosome).127
• Finally, even if all these processes are eventually elucidated and genetic pathways identified for each kind of disease, it is probable that virtually everybody will have at least one susceptibility gene for one or more smoking-related disease.127, 128

Screening for susceptibility to tobacco-caused diseases therefore cannot be regarded as a viable tool for smoking prevention, and from a public health perspective, the only workable message is that smoking is not safe for anyone.126, 128