Researchers say they have discovered a relationship between air pollution and cancer. This is a completely new research. This can completely change our understanding of the progression of cancer.
According to research by a team of researchers from the Francis Crick Institute in London, air pollution regenerates old damaged cells instead of harming them. Professor Charles Swanton, one of the world's top experts on the matter, has called the discovery a 'new era'.
With the discovery of this new cause, drugs can now be developed to prevent the formation of cancer inside the body. This new discovery may explain how thousands of cancer-causing elements work inside the body.
The classic concept about cancer begins with a healthy cell. It undergoes frequent mutations in its genetic code or DNA until it reaches a tipping point. With this it becomes cancer and its growth gets out of control.
But there are some problems with this idea about the birth of cancer in the body. Cancer-causing mutations seem to occur in healthy tissue. Many things, such as air pollution that causes cancer, do not seem to damage people's DNA.
Then what happens?
Researchers have introduced a new idea about the origin of cancer. Actually, the damage that occurs in the DNA of our cell picks up speed with age.
But in order to make it cancerous, there must be something that takes this limit (until it becomes cancer).
How did this discovery happen? The basis of this discovery was the investigation of lung cancer in non-smokers. Smoking is the greatest reason for cellular breakdown in the lungs.
But air pollution turned out to be the cause of one in ten cancer cases in Britain.
The scientists at Crick focused on a variety of pollution. This is called particulate matter 2.5 (PM 2.5) which is smaller than the diameter of a piece of human hair.
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However, to know the cause of cancer, through detailed research done on humans and animals, scientists put forward some things.
In places where the level of air pollution was high, there were more cancer patients who did not smoke.
When PM 2.5 is inhaled, a chemical alarm is released in the lungs. This is called interleukin-1 beta.
This causes irritation and activates cells in the lungs to repair any damage.
But one in every six lakh cells in the lungs of people over the age of 50 have potentially cancerous mutations.
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With increasing age, a person looks healthy until it becomes cancerous by being activated by chemical alarms.
These scientists were successful in preventing cancer from developing in a rat living in air pollution. For this, he developed a drug that stopped the alarm signal.
This discovery is in a way a double success. One, it increased understanding about the effect of air pollution and secondly, the basic causes of cancer were known.
Dr. Emilia Lim, one of the researchers at the Crick Institute, has said that people who had never smoked but lung cancer started growing in their bodies.
They didn't even know how it happened.
It is also very important that 99 percent of the world's people live in places where the level of air pollution is above WHO guidelines. This means It's that it's affecting all of us."
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But the results of the research also show that having a mutation alone is not enough to cause cancer. This requires additional ingredients.
Professor Swanton said that his lab's most interesting discovery was a new look at our understanding of the origin of tumors. It was telling that after all, our understanding about the origin of the tumor can also have new dimensions. This could usher in a new era of molecular cancer prevention.
Therefore, making pills for cancer prevention for people living in areas with heavy air pollution is not a fantasy.
Doctors have already tried interleukin-1 beta drugs for cardiovascular diseases. Although by chance, they came to know that it reduces the risk of lung cancer.
The results of this research related to cancer are being shared with scientists at a press conference of the European Society for Medical Oncology.
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In a conversation with the BBC from this conference, Professor Swanton said, "Pollution is a great example of this. But in the coming ten years there may be more than 200 examples for the cause of cancer."
He said that there is a need to think afresh about how smoking causes cancer. Is it because of damage to DNA? This damage is caused by the chemicals present in tobacco.
Interestingly, DNA with mutations alone is not enough to cause cancer. Isaac Berenblum said in 1947 that other factors may be responsible for causing cancer. However, Michelle Mitchell, chief of Cancer Research UK, said, "Smoking is still the biggest cause of lung cancer."
However, he says that new understanding is emerging due to the work of science about how cancer develops. Now we have an increased understanding of what causes lung cancer.
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