SMOKING DAMAGE LINKED TO YOUTH

Cigarettes: A Study Says Young Smokers Risk Permanent Health Problems-even
If They Quit.

Washington-Smoking in the teen-age years causes permanent genetic
changes in the lungs and forever increases the risk of lung cancer -
even if the smoker quits, a study finds. And the younger the smoking
starts, the more damage is done.

The research, at a time when more than one-third of teens take up the
smoking habit, shows "there is something uniquely bad about starting
young," said John K. Wiencke, a genetics expert at the University of
California, San Francisco, School of Medicine.

The research gives powerful laboratory evidence of why starting
smoking before the age of 18 can be particularly harmful to long-term
health, said Wiencke, author of a study today in the Journal of the
National Cancer Institute.

Smoking at a young age on a daily basis apparently causes lung damage
that lasts a lifetime, he said.

"It looks like it is the age when smoking starts that is important,"
Wiencke said. "It didn't matter if they were heavy or light smokers -
what mattered is that they started young."

Earlier studies have indicated that smoking at a young age stunts the
lungs' full development and increases the risk of breathing problems
later in life. Studies have also shown that smokers who begin young
are less likely to break the habit.

But Wiencke's study for the first time shows enduring DNA damage
caused by youthful smoking.

In their study, Wiencke and colleagues tested for DNA alterations in
the non tumor lung tissue of patients being treated for lung cancer.
The group included 57 people who were current smokers, 79 who were
former smokers and seven who had never smoked.

The healthy lung tissue was tested for the number of DNA alterations
per 10 billion cells. Some alterations occur with age, but the number
of gene changes was much higher among smokers - and highest of all
among those who started smoking at a young age, Wiencke said.

Such alterations occur when chemicals in tobacco smoke fuse with genes
in the DNA of lung cells.

TEEN SMOKING STATISTICS

About 3 million teen-agers now smoke.

Less than 28 percent of high school students were smokers in 1991, up
to 36.4 percent by 1997.

About one-third of all smokers die of smoking-related
illnesses.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention