Smoking and Breast Cancer Risk
At least 70 of the 5000 plus chemicals released by cigarette smoke are directly linked to an increased risk of cancer. These are known as carcinogens, and they use your lungs as an entry point before traveling throughout your body. Once inside, a carcinogen can increase your risk of cancer in two ways, depending on its form. It may alter your cellular metabolism to increase the rate of cell division, or it may actually damage your DNA. Both of these result in a change to normal cellular processes and increase the chance of mutations, which could result in the development of cancer. Let’s look at the relationship between smoking and breast cancer risk. Smoking and Breast Cancer Risk This is why smoking is regularly associated with increased cancer rates, especially in the lungs where the carcinogens are immediately received. Unfortunately, that isn’t where they stay. The carcinogens introduced to …