11 ms·

Lungs heal damage from smoking

233 points by daegloe 7y ago

scythe 7y ago
> In people who quit, up to 40% of their cells looked just like those from people who had never smoked. It looks like magic relative to the current theory, but it’s still not exactly good
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  It means quitting has health benefits, never starting at all has more health benefits.
tawbah 7y ago
I want to add some additional commentary on this post, because it relates to an experiment I did during one of my college science courses. I will summarize for convenience. Essentially, what we did for the experiment was to observe the effect of tobacco "juice" (i.e. the loose trimmings from a Marlboro Red cigarette which were soaked in water) on a cell culture where the cells were taken from the inside of our mouths(cheeks) via cotton swabs. The experiment was to observe the effects of this tobacco juice on the cells over time. Within 2 weeks of exposure, the cells mutated and were "cancerous" and appeared disfigured and damaged. This was terrifying to see up close.
- leoh 7y ago
  Did you have a control with plant juice from other arbitrary plant leaves?
  - tawbah 7y ago
    Our professor was the one leading the experiment, so she may have had one, but I can't be certain.
- bcrosby95 7y ago
  Reminds me a bit of the "put a tooth in coke for a month" experiments. I'm not sure these sorts of things mean all that much.
  - m463 7y ago
    A friend saw me drinking coke and said he never drank soft drinks after the "tooth dissolves in coke" thing he did in school. So he was probably healthier even though it was based on scare tactics.
    - Noumenon72 7y ago
      Yup. I quit drinking soda based on a swallowing study I did where I had a pH meter in my esophagus. It freaked me out that I was swallowing something more acidic than my stomach so I stopped drinking it. That was back when fat was still considered worse for you than sugar. Thank goodness for slightly unsound science.
      - KozmoNau7 7y ago
        >"That was back when fat was still considered worse for you than sugar." Just a small addition/correction: Back when all fat was considered worse for you. We've since started distinguishing between trans fats, and saturated/unsaturated fats, and various subtypes of those. Trans fats and saturated fats are still bad, despite what some types would have you believe. As is sugar.
- quotemstr 7y ago
  The dose makes the poison. I wouldn't be surprised if you saw the same effects with prolonged ultra-high doses caffeine or some other innocuous substance.
- mschuster91 7y ago
  The interesting question: is this caused by the tobacco, or is this caused by the fact that the mucous membrane in the mouth normally fully regenerates every 8 days? The cells shouldn't be alive after two weeks.
jessriedel 7y ago
This title is pure clickbait. Any reason to not replace this BBC article with the "Nature News and Views" article? More informative, less dumbed down, but still accessible. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00165-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00165-7 The original journal article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-1961-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-1961-1
- jason0597 7y ago
  The BBC has really gone down in quality in recent years, and the latest cuts it's going to face aren't going to help at all. It is a shame.
52-6F-62 7y ago
This reflects what my doctor told me several years ago (four and a half?) when I quit. He didn’t use the word magic. He did say that after four or five years or so my lungs would be in the same condition they would have been if I had never smoked—but only if I quit then. I’d smoked in the vicinity of a pack a day for close to ten years if I were to give it a rough average. That said, I was very active in my youth, and worked physical jobs and played live music beside any sedentary work I’ve done. I continue to do so as well. YMMV. Edit: I thought I should add that I don’t want this to sound like an endorsement of the body’s ability to endure punishment. If I could go back I wouldn’t pick up regular smoking as I did. And I wouldn’t start again. I return regularly to the feeling of relief that I’m not so bound to it anymore. I don’t hate it, and I’d have a cigar, and maybe when I’m an old withered man I’ll pick up pipe tobacco. Who knows. For those who can manage it without getting too regular, good for you—life is short. I wouldn’t tempt myself that way again. Anyway, whisky’s a finer poison in my books—and similar cautions apply. ;)
- beauzero 7y ago
  I would also add that quitting smoking was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Just don't start. Some people don't have a problem quitting. I did.
  - bitxbitxbitcoin 7y ago
    That is why one of my favorite quitting smoking jokes is: "Quitting smoking is easy! I've done it 5 times." - 7 years without a stoge.
  - 52-6F-62 7y ago
    Yep it took me a few tries as well. It didn’t help that at the time I worked with some bitter people who liked to disparage at every turn: “you never quit, you just stop for a while”. That kind of nonsense. My doctor was a real motivator, and yet never laid a guilt trip. Ultimately, taking some time off and feeling as terrible as I needed for few days really made a difference. Not everyone can make that time. I will say that after the first week it was mainly habits and the waning cravings but the best part is that: It gets easier and easier and easier and then you forget you ever did.
irjustin 7y ago
Wow that's fantastic! Especially the part about it helping motivate people to quit. The 'not all hope is lost' if you simply stop now (simply =/= easy). As someone who lost their grandfather to smoking/cancer, I'll take any reason for someone to quit.
balladeer 7y ago
Most of the people, especially early smokers, who wouldn't be bothered to read the article and just go by the title and think - "I knew that, smoking is actually fine!" - and would puff away to glory like never before. While this is the first sentence in the article: > Your lungs have an almost "magical" ability to repair the cancerous mutations caused by smoking - but only if you stop, say scientists. I really think BBC should have changed the title.
taneq 7y ago
> In people who quit, up to 40% of their cells looked just like those from people who had never smoked. That's a nice way to say "smoking destroys 60% of your lungs."
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Rury 7y ago
  It's not clear from the article what this really means. Up to 40% after what time frame? By the end of the study? Was the study a few months? 5 years? Does it continue to get better or just stop at 40%?
  - tsukurimashou 7y ago
    I agree with you, the numbers doesn't mean anything without a context of time
- meowface 7y ago
  It actually says more like "smoking damages 95%+ of your lungs [1], but more than half of that damage can be undone if you quit". I think that's pretty impressive, even if there's still a lot of lasting damage. [1] "The overwhelming majority of cells taken from a smoker's airways had been mutated by tobacco, with cells containing up to 10,000 genetic alterations."
- photoGrant 7y ago
  hindered vs destroyed brings two different ideas Your semantics are baiting....
sb057 7y ago
But what about the neurotoxins present in tobacco? Does damage caused by that 'magically' heal?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
eganist 7y ago
Wow, this is a magically irresponsible headline by BBC, especially considering the rest of the article. Without a quantifier, the implication is that all damage is healed, which further down is refuted by the buried lede: > In people who quit, up to 40% of their cells looked just like those from people who had never smoked. Or, at least 60% of the lungs still resembled the lungs of a current smoker.
sigmaprimus 7y ago
I quit 8 years ago after 25 years of a pack a day, yes my lungs are better, so is my sense of smell and taste. Unfortunately my heart and teeth won't magically repair themselves, neither will the scars on my legs from poor circulation due to my hardened arteries. Worst of all might be the fact that my bank account will never be what it could gave been if only I didn't start, get addicted then squander the thousands of dollars a year on something that was killing me for over two decades. Aint life funny that way? Nope, nothing funny about it, just regret, remorse and sadness. If you don't smoke, please don't start it truly is self imposed misery.
- horomeme 7y ago
  I also smoked when I was younger, because advertising gave me the information that it was “cool”, but hey, if it weren’t for the advertising I never would have known!
- bitexploder 7y ago
  I wish young people, under 25 or so, could live a couple of days in your shoes or my moms shoes. She was an alcoholic with a pack a day habit for 20+ years. She isn’t 60 yet and she has a litany of health issues: degenerative disk disease, hardened arteries (can barely walk), heart disease, chronic nerve pain, many secondary issues from there. No exercise and a poor diet, depression, etc. it seems so innocent like you have forever ahead of you. Then 5, 10, 20 years roll by and your body is fucked. It’s so hard to think just one cigarette, one drink, or one hit of a drug can ruin you, but for some people that is all it takes. Young minds just don’t have the tools to weigh the opportunity cost. I am not saying it should be illegal or anything (the opposite), but it really sucks and there are plenty of regrettable stories like yours and my mothers.
  - nicoburns 7y ago
    > It’s so hard to think just one cigarette, one drink, or one hit of a drug can ruin you, but for some people that is all it takes. I was taught this growing up, but I don't really believe it anymore. Nobody is addicted to drugs or alcohol or cigarettes just from one use. The people who become addicted are the ones who are using it to escape their lives, and continue to use the drug for the same reason they used it in the first place. After a while of this continued use, then they might become addicted. But the significant factor is their environment and mental state, not that they decided to try something once.
est31 7y ago
Note that this study only focuses on lung cancer. It studies genetic damage to the bronchial epithelial cells. It does not study other diseases caused by smoking, like COPD which involves lung performance getting gradually worse until you die from suffocation. COPD is actually cause of more deaths [1] than lung cancer and it does NOT get better if you stop smoking. It can only be slowed down, e.g. if you stop smoking. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rat...
- randcraw 7y ago
  Not lung cancer per se; the paper focuses only on reversal of tumor mutation burden of the cells that line the lungs and airways. Alas the popular press summary implies concomittant reversal the carcinogenic damage of smoking -- which 60+ years of clinical experience refutes, and the research paper itself also refines: " The higher risk of lung cancer in ex-smokers compared with non-smokers is reflected in their high mutation burden and the signature of smoking-associated mutations in most of their lung cells (similar to the cellular profile of current smokers). Although ex-smokers have a high risk of developing lung cancer, their risk is reduced compared with that of current smokers, and this lowering depends on the length of time of smoking cessation1. Why this is the case has been hard to explain. However, perhaps the most surprising result of Yoshida and colleagues’ work might offer a clue: in 5 out of 6 ex-smokers, 20–50% of the cells had a low mutation burden that was similar to the profile of non-smokers of the same age range. "
  - est31 7y ago
    > Not lung cancer per se; the paper focuses only on reversal of tumor mutation burden of the cells that line the lungs and airways. The main cause of lung cancer is precisely that mutation burden that the paper studies. From what I read, most lung cancers stem from mutations of bronchial epithelial cells instead of mutations in the alveoles or other parts of the lung. The mutation burden is both the cause of lung cancer and can advance the disease by further mutations leading to accelerated growth/metasthazing behaviour/etc.
strangescript 7y ago
My grandmother smoked for 40 years, stopped in her early 60s. Sill died from COPD and lung cancer in her early 80s and was miserable for the last 5 years of her life. Don't smoke kids.
thought_alarm 7y ago
I started smoking on the day of my 16th birthday, which, at the time and place, was the legal smoking age. It was irresistible for a high school kid with a job. By the end of that first pack I was completely hooked and smoking would be a permanent part of daily life. I only smoked for about a year before deciding to quit. Unfortunately, I took me 12 years to finish quitting. During that period of my physical prime (ages 18 to 26), I couldn't climb a flight of stairs or ride a bike without getting completely winded. Any sort of physical exertion would result in gasping, coughing up phlegm, and seeing stars. A pick-up game of basketball or street hockey was out of the question. I finally kicked it at age 30, 14 years after I had started. Although it took a while, by age 35 I could physically do things my 20-year-old self could only dream of. Like riding a bike up a hill, or exerting oneself at the gym. I'm now in my mid-40s, and while the rest of body is now deteriorating at an alarming rate, my lungs are quite literally the only part of my body I never think about. I'm physically stronger and healthier in my mid-40s than I was at age 20. So if you smoke, quit. Your lungs will recover.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  > During that period of my physical prime (ages 18 to 26), I couldn't climb a flight of stairs or ride a bike without getting completely winded. Any sort of physical exertion would result in gasping, coughing up phlegm, and seeing stars. I started running when I was probably smoking 10 a day and was in the best shape of my life up to that point. If you don’t do any exercise and you smoke you’re likely to be in pretty awful shape. But you can easily smoke and be in much better shape than people who don’t exercise. The bar is very low.
- jimmaswell 7y ago
  >couldn't climb a flight of stairs or ride a bike without getting completely winded. Any sort of physical exertion would result in gasping, coughing up phlegm, and seeing stars How did society get on just fine when almost everybody smoked? Is this reaction an outlier?
  - mixmastamyk 7y ago
    Exercise was for suckers and the industrial revolution had already happened.
yalogin 7y ago
One thing the article doesn’t mention is what stopping means. I can guess the more time passes the better the healing but if they said after x years after stopping the effect is profound.
sebow 7y ago
BBC's quality is very shit "as of late" (more like the past 5 years at least). This has been known for years if not decades(even more to actual smokers).It's not magic, it's the human body. It's the reason why people still smoke even though they know it's bad (usually people with very high physical activity: drivers, etc).People with less physical activity can drop smoking faster because they're tenfold more affected by it. Smoking is bad,especially if one does very little physical activity.There's a very deep psychological explanation for people's desire to smoke (besides entourage,desire to 'fit in',etc), which is that people literally forget to breathe in our societies.This is due to a long list of reasons: sedentary lives, stress, imposed 'time' schedules that force us to deny the needs of our bodies, less desire to breathe due to low quality of oxygen,etc. BBC using the word magically here is very hypocritical, knowing that they'd jump to disprove any narratives that contradict their own agendas at any given time.BBC knows this is not magic, but then again mass-media in US and other places is thankfully dying, sparing our lives from the miserable, garbage tier articles of this kind.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Gatsky 7y ago
Well this is interesting, but of course lots of smokers never quit and you only need one cell to turn into a cancer and kill you. On a related note, I think the demonstration that lung cells and lung cancers bear the stigmata of tobacco related mutagenesis has some significance to the legal liability of Big Tobacco. With this data one can show that a particular cancer in a particular person began from a single cell which was mutated by tobacco exposure. This is one level up from saying tobacco merely increases the risk of cancer on average, which is always open to the counter-argument that some other factor could have caused the particular cancer in the particular person. Whole genome sequencing of tumour and germline DNA can be had for about $5k these days plus analysis costs, so a class action suit or even individual suits are very feasible. There will be no shortage of oncologists and genomics people happy to help out with this.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tus88 7y ago
I didn't think BBC did sponsored articles?
type-2 7y ago
I pick up smoking a few in a gap of a few months. Then I feel guilty and stop for a few months. I have been smoking about 50 cigs year. Truth is I don't think I can really quit. Forget addiction, I just like it that much. It is so much fun. I remember my first cig. It was so much fun. That's all it took
adreamingsoul 7y ago
A lot of people smoke in Portland, Oregon and Oslo, Norway. At least that is my impression as I don’t have any facts or figures. But of the people I do see smoking, a significant portion of them are young. Another interesting to me observation is the way cigarettes smoke smells in Portland vs. Oslo. I don’t smoke, and don’t enjoy the smell and damage it does to the environment. If only people could properly dispose of their cigarette butts and snooze packets.
diob 7y ago
I guess this is good news for me, since I grew up with parents who chainsmoked indoors. I wish there was some way to make such a thing illegal, other children shouldn't have to grow up how I did.
9dev 7y ago
I stopped smoking almost a year ago, having smoked heavily (~25/D) from 16-25. Quitting was the best decision of my life so far: I run up stairs without thinking, my senses are sharpened and I generally feel way better than before. But most importantly, I don't have the ffing urge to smoke a cigarette whenever I have five minutes of time, and especially when I don't have those five minutes. I get up in the morning and just drink an espresso, I barely use my balcony anymore. I work in concentrated periods of 2-4 hours, because you know what? That smoking break you need to stay creative, it's of course just a convenient lie to yourself. I go to parties and can stay inside for as long as I want to, and I still get to talk to people. I like to say i woke up and the urge was gone, but that isn't the full truth. The days before I quit I had extreme anxiousness and couldn't sleep, thinking about how much I love life and what plans I have and how I want to have children - and how stupid it is to inhale smoke that kills you and doesn't even taste that good in exchange. I didn't want to die. Next day, halfway through the second one, I noticed they really don't taste good and decided to quit.
agumonkey 7y ago
Still curious about the research about THC induced apoptosis in lung alveolas. I've been thinking of making a tiny bowl-vaporizer to inhale THC in small doses just to cleanse my lungs.
eecc 7y ago
Possible that the mutations have some sort of selective advantage while smoking which ceases to matter once quit. The non-mutated ones become again the one that express the more favorable genome for the current environment and take over from there.
KozmoNau7 7y ago
My dad had heart surgery ~16 years ago, due to the effects of smoking. He quit from one day to the next, and didn't touch tobacco at all after that, started working out, cooking and eating healthier food, started playing the drums again, he got a new lease on life. He passed away a couple of weeks ago at the age of 62, due to heart issues, a delayed consequence of smoking and a traditional diet heavy in saturated fat. Living clean(-ish) for 16 years doesn't completely absolve you of your unhealthy habits earlier in life. Don't start smoking, don't let your diet get shitty and full of saturated fat and sugar. Otherwise it will suck later in life, and sometimes sooner than you think.
ArcMex 7y ago
I smoked for 8 years before quitting three years ago. I breathe easier, got my appetite back and my social life improved. I can smell things. I can taste food again. I can talk to people without worrying about offensive breath. Smoking takes away more than you may know. I'm 29 and wish I had quit much, much earlier. Lots of damaged relationships in my past. Those, unlike my lungs, have sadly not started to heal.
- dasKrokodil 7y ago
  How did smoking damage your relationships?
onetimemanytime 7y ago
Lungs heal damage from smoking...or better late than never. Even according to article they never heal 100% (just 40%) and smoking also screws up about everything else in the body. But, as soon as you stop smoking things "better"...
d--b 7y ago
My in-law is an uncologist, and told me this 10 years ago: If you smoke 1 pack a day for 15 years (what they call "15 pack.years"), your lungs will completely heal, and you have no more risk than the next guy to get lung cancer. After 15 pack.years, then the risk starts to increase significantly.
- superpermutat0r 7y ago
  There must be some hormesis from smoking. Young human body can adapt and work around stress, be it from smoking or exercise or alcohol. It is definitely a huge problem to maintain these physiologically stressful habits into old age when body no longer has the work capacity or ability to adapt.
meerita 7y ago
I quit 9 years ago. I am a new person. If you can read spanish (Google Translate will work well), I've described how i've quit smoking. http://minid.net/2012/12/10/como-realmente-pude-dejar-de-fumar/ http://minid.net/2012/12/10/como-realmente-pude-dejar-de-fum...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
operatorius 7y ago
I have attempted numerous times quitting smoking with no success. During the withdrawls I wasn't able to function properly: blurred vision, couldnt concentrate, mood swings and sleepless nights. Smoking has a negative impact on my both physical and mental health. I have been smoking for almost 10 years, a pack a day Could anyone who have successfully quit smoking share your stories and tips?
- contingencies 7y ago
  That's expected: I'm yet to meet anyone who can work effectively during withdrawls. To resolve, just leave yourself at home or at a hotel with nobody else, a decent TV serial (BBC's various history documentary series are a great go-to) or computer game and food, and admit it will take three days for cravings to subside. It helps a little if you exercise. It's actually really easy, once you've succeeded once. The real key is then not putting yourself in high risk situations (ie. drinking) for a week or two, because any time you restart is usually because of that. That was my hardest hurdle. It can help to sync the quit with a change of environment or heavy endurance exercise (eg. multi-day hiking/cycle-touring which helps clear your lungs). Don't try to quit while stressed out at work or on a short timeline, that's just self defeating.
- stolenmerch 7y ago
  I was in the same exact boat as you but have been free of it for 10 years now. I was terrified because I NEEDED cigarettes to concentrate and do my job. I couldn't envision doing challenging technical work without regular smoke breaks. I tried to quit several times and always relapsed. The only thing that worked for me was to slowly cut back and let my brain adjust. Finally, when I was down to 1-2 cigs per day, I set a cold turkey date. I still had to white knuckle it through the first 3 weeks of zero cigarettes but the cravings eventually began to die down. For maybe the first year after that I had triggers every month or so I had to manage, but I didn't want to stumble so I just powered through them. Finally, I stopped having cravings. I know some people say they still have cravings 20 years later but I don't. I stand outside with smoker friends and don't feel any need to join them. All the good things about not smoking have come true for me. It's so worth the up-front struggle. Please try your hardest and it WILL work!
lysp 7y ago
Just saw these graphs quoted. https://twitter.com/Clive_Bates/status/1222799694453264385 https://twitter.com/Clive_Bates/status/1222799694453264385 > The Doll et al 50 year study of doctors nailed this in 2004 (see charts). Smokers avoid almost all premature mortality risk if they quit by age 40 and benefit at any age.
wazoox 7y ago
Two of my friends had a close call last month. One had an emergency quadruple bypass. The other one has COPD and fell down to 15% of normal lung capacity, and is now under 24/24h oxygen, hoping for a pair of new lungs...
dghughes 7y ago
It's strange how lungs can recover most of the time from smoking but not from particles. COPD is a terrible disease my father has it along with IPF (scars on lungs). He smoked early in his life but quit around age 30. Smoking is one of the causes of COPD but so is inhaling small particles like dust and fumes.
apta 7y ago
It's absurd and unbelievable that smoking is not categorically banned. Cigarette companies should be shut down point blank. Absolutely nothing good comes out of smoking, other than making some people rich at the expense of the health of the population, the tax payers' money, and the environment.
throw3356112 7y ago
To quit smoking, there is something like a 'miracle' book, judging by reviews - 'Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking'. Has anyone here read it? I don't smoke btw.

233 points by daegloe 7y ago

> In people who quit, up to 40% of their cells looked just like those from people who had never smoked. It looks like magic relative to the current theory, but it’s still not exactly good

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
It means quitting has health benefits, never starting at all has more health benefits.

tawbah 7y ago

I want to add some additional commentary on this post, because it relates to an experiment I did during one of my college science courses. I will summarize for convenience. Essentially, what we did for the experiment was to observe the effect of tobacco "juice" (i.e. the loose trimmings from a Marlboro Red cigarette which were soaked in water) on a cell culture where the cells were taken from the inside of our mouths(cheeks) via cotton swabs. The experiment was to observe the effects of this tobacco juice on the cells over time. Within 2 weeks of exposure, the cells mutated and were "cancerous" and appeared disfigured and damaged. This was terrifying to see up close.

leoh 7y ago
Did you have a control with plant juice from other arbitrary plant leaves?
- tawbah 7y ago
  Our professor was the one leading the experiment, so she may have had one, but I can't be certain.
bcrosby95 7y ago
Reminds me a bit of the "put a tooth in coke for a month" experiments. I'm not sure these sorts of things mean all that much.
- m463 7y ago
  A friend saw me drinking coke and said he never drank soft drinks after the "tooth dissolves in coke" thing he did in school. So he was probably healthier even though it was based on scare tactics.
  - Noumenon72 7y ago
    Yup. I quit drinking soda based on a swallowing study I did where I had a pH meter in my esophagus. It freaked me out that I was swallowing something more acidic than my stomach so I stopped drinking it. That was back when fat was still considered worse for you than sugar. Thank goodness for slightly unsound science.
    - KozmoNau7 7y ago
      >"That was back when fat was still considered worse for you than sugar." Just a small addition/correction: Back when all fat was considered worse for you. We've since started distinguishing between trans fats, and saturated/unsaturated fats, and various subtypes of those. Trans fats and saturated fats are still bad, despite what some types would have you believe. As is sugar.
quotemstr 7y ago
The dose makes the poison. I wouldn't be surprised if you saw the same effects with prolonged ultra-high doses caffeine or some other innocuous substance.
mschuster91 7y ago
The interesting question: is this caused by the tobacco, or is this caused by the fact that the mucous membrane in the mouth normally fully regenerates every 8 days? The cells shouldn't be alive after two weeks.

jessriedel 7y ago

This title is pure clickbait. Any reason to not replace this BBC article with the "Nature News and Views" article? More informative, less dumbed down, but still accessible. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00165-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00165-7 The original journal article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-1961-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-1961-1

jason0597 7y ago
The BBC has really gone down in quality in recent years, and the latest cuts it's going to face aren't going to help at all. It is a shame.

52-6F-62 7y ago

This reflects what my doctor told me several years ago (four and a half?) when I quit. He didn’t use the word magic. He did say that after four or five years or so my lungs would be in the same condition they would have been if I had never smoked—but only if I quit then. I’d smoked in the vicinity of a pack a day for close to ten years if I were to give it a rough average. That said, I was very active in my youth, and worked physical jobs and played live music beside any sedentary work I’ve done. I continue to do so as well. YMMV. Edit: I thought I should add that I don’t want this to sound like an endorsement of the body’s ability to endure punishment. If I could go back I wouldn’t pick up regular smoking as I did. And I wouldn’t start again. I return regularly to the feeling of relief that I’m not so bound to it anymore. I don’t hate it, and I’d have a cigar, and maybe when I’m an old withered man I’ll pick up pipe tobacco. Who knows. For those who can manage it without getting too regular, good for you—life is short. I wouldn’t tempt myself that way again. Anyway, whisky’s a finer poison in my books—and similar cautions apply. ;)

beauzero 7y ago
I would also add that quitting smoking was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Just don't start. Some people don't have a problem quitting. I did.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 7y ago
  That is why one of my favorite quitting smoking jokes is: "Quitting smoking is easy! I've done it 5 times." - 7 years without a stoge.
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  Yep it took me a few tries as well. It didn’t help that at the time I worked with some bitter people who liked to disparage at every turn: “you never quit, you just stop for a while”. That kind of nonsense. My doctor was a real motivator, and yet never laid a guilt trip. Ultimately, taking some time off and feeling as terrible as I needed for few days really made a difference. Not everyone can make that time. I will say that after the first week it was mainly habits and the waning cravings but the best part is that: It gets easier and easier and easier and then you forget you ever did.

irjustin 7y ago

Wow that's fantastic! Especially the part about it helping motivate people to quit. The 'not all hope is lost' if you simply stop now (simply =/= easy). As someone who lost their grandfather to smoking/cancer, I'll take any reason for someone to quit.

balladeer 7y ago

Most of the people, especially early smokers, who wouldn't be bothered to read the article and just go by the title and think - "I knew that, smoking is actually fine!" - and would puff away to glory like never before. While this is the first sentence in the article: > Your lungs have an almost "magical" ability to repair the cancerous mutations caused by smoking - but only if you stop, say scientists. I really think BBC should have changed the title.

taneq 7y ago

> In people who quit, up to 40% of their cells looked just like those from people who had never smoked. That's a nice way to say "smoking destroys 60% of your lungs."

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Rury 7y ago
It's not clear from the article what this really means. Up to 40% after what time frame? By the end of the study? Was the study a few months? 5 years? Does it continue to get better or just stop at 40%?
- tsukurimashou 7y ago
  I agree with you, the numbers doesn't mean anything without a context of time
meowface 7y ago
It actually says more like "smoking damages 95%+ of your lungs [1], but more than half of that damage can be undone if you quit". I think that's pretty impressive, even if there's still a lot of lasting damage. [1] "The overwhelming majority of cells taken from a smoker's airways had been mutated by tobacco, with cells containing up to 10,000 genetic alterations."
photoGrant 7y ago
hindered vs destroyed brings two different ideas Your semantics are baiting....

sb057 7y ago

But what about the neurotoxins present in tobacco? Does damage caused by that 'magically' heal?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

eganist 7y ago

Wow, this is a magically irresponsible headline by BBC, especially considering the rest of the article. Without a quantifier, the implication is that all damage is healed, which further down is refuted by the buried lede: > In people who quit, up to 40% of their cells looked just like those from people who had never smoked. Or, at least 60% of the lungs still resembled the lungs of a current smoker.

sigmaprimus 7y ago

I quit 8 years ago after 25 years of a pack a day, yes my lungs are better, so is my sense of smell and taste. Unfortunately my heart and teeth won't magically repair themselves, neither will the scars on my legs from poor circulation due to my hardened arteries. Worst of all might be the fact that my bank account will never be what it could gave been if only I didn't start, get addicted then squander the thousands of dollars a year on something that was killing me for over two decades. Aint life funny that way? Nope, nothing funny about it, just regret, remorse and sadness. If you don't smoke, please don't start it truly is self imposed misery.

horomeme 7y ago
I also smoked when I was younger, because advertising gave me the information that it was “cool”, but hey, if it weren’t for the advertising I never would have known!
bitexploder 7y ago
I wish young people, under 25 or so, could live a couple of days in your shoes or my moms shoes. She was an alcoholic with a pack a day habit for 20+ years. She isn’t 60 yet and she has a litany of health issues: degenerative disk disease, hardened arteries (can barely walk), heart disease, chronic nerve pain, many secondary issues from there. No exercise and a poor diet, depression, etc. it seems so innocent like you have forever ahead of you. Then 5, 10, 20 years roll by and your body is fucked. It’s so hard to think just one cigarette, one drink, or one hit of a drug can ruin you, but for some people that is all it takes. Young minds just don’t have the tools to weigh the opportunity cost. I am not saying it should be illegal or anything (the opposite), but it really sucks and there are plenty of regrettable stories like yours and my mothers.
- nicoburns 7y ago
  > It’s so hard to think just one cigarette, one drink, or one hit of a drug can ruin you, but for some people that is all it takes. I was taught this growing up, but I don't really believe it anymore. Nobody is addicted to drugs or alcohol or cigarettes just from one use. The people who become addicted are the ones who are using it to escape their lives, and continue to use the drug for the same reason they used it in the first place. After a while of this continued use, then they might become addicted. But the significant factor is their environment and mental state, not that they decided to try something once.

est31 7y ago

Note that this study only focuses on lung cancer. It studies genetic damage to the bronchial epithelial cells. It does not study other diseases caused by smoking, like COPD which involves lung performance getting gradually worse until you die from suffocation. COPD is actually cause of more deaths [1] than lung cancer and it does NOT get better if you stop smoking. It can only be slowed down, e.g. if you stop smoking. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rat...

randcraw 7y ago
Not lung cancer per se; the paper focuses only on reversal of tumor mutation burden of the cells that line the lungs and airways. Alas the popular press summary implies concomittant reversal the carcinogenic damage of smoking -- which 60+ years of clinical experience refutes, and the research paper itself also refines: " The higher risk of lung cancer in ex-smokers compared with non-smokers is reflected in their high mutation burden and the signature of smoking-associated mutations in most of their lung cells (similar to the cellular profile of current smokers). Although ex-smokers have a high risk of developing lung cancer, their risk is reduced compared with that of current smokers, and this lowering depends on the length of time of smoking cessation1. Why this is the case has been hard to explain. However, perhaps the most surprising result of Yoshida and colleagues’ work might offer a clue: in 5 out of 6 ex-smokers, 20–50% of the cells had a low mutation burden that was similar to the profile of non-smokers of the same age range. "
- est31 7y ago
  > Not lung cancer per se; the paper focuses only on reversal of tumor mutation burden of the cells that line the lungs and airways. The main cause of lung cancer is precisely that mutation burden that the paper studies. From what I read, most lung cancers stem from mutations of bronchial epithelial cells instead of mutations in the alveoles or other parts of the lung. The mutation burden is both the cause of lung cancer and can advance the disease by further mutations leading to accelerated growth/metasthazing behaviour/etc.

strangescript 7y ago

My grandmother smoked for 40 years, stopped in her early 60s. Sill died from COPD and lung cancer in her early 80s and was miserable for the last 5 years of her life. Don't smoke kids.

thought_alarm 7y ago

I started smoking on the day of my 16th birthday, which, at the time and place, was the legal smoking age. It was irresistible for a high school kid with a job. By the end of that first pack I was completely hooked and smoking would be a permanent part of daily life. I only smoked for about a year before deciding to quit. Unfortunately, I took me 12 years to finish quitting. During that period of my physical prime (ages 18 to 26), I couldn't climb a flight of stairs or ride a bike without getting completely winded. Any sort of physical exertion would result in gasping, coughing up phlegm, and seeing stars. A pick-up game of basketball or street hockey was out of the question. I finally kicked it at age 30, 14 years after I had started. Although it took a while, by age 35 I could physically do things my 20-year-old self could only dream of. Like riding a bike up a hill, or exerting oneself at the gym. I'm now in my mid-40s, and while the rest of body is now deteriorating at an alarming rate, my lungs are quite literally the only part of my body I never think about. I'm physically stronger and healthier in my mid-40s than I was at age 20. So if you smoke, quit. Your lungs will recover.

barry-cotter 7y ago
> During that period of my physical prime (ages 18 to 26), I couldn't climb a flight of stairs or ride a bike without getting completely winded. Any sort of physical exertion would result in gasping, coughing up phlegm, and seeing stars. I started running when I was probably smoking 10 a day and was in the best shape of my life up to that point. If you don’t do any exercise and you smoke you’re likely to be in pretty awful shape. But you can easily smoke and be in much better shape than people who don’t exercise. The bar is very low.
jimmaswell 7y ago
>couldn't climb a flight of stairs or ride a bike without getting completely winded. Any sort of physical exertion would result in gasping, coughing up phlegm, and seeing stars How did society get on just fine when almost everybody smoked? Is this reaction an outlier?
- mixmastamyk 7y ago
  Exercise was for suckers and the industrial revolution had already happened.

yalogin 7y ago

One thing the article doesn’t mention is what stopping means. I can guess the more time passes the better the healing but if they said after x years after stopping the effect is profound.

sebow 7y ago

BBC's quality is very shit "as of late" (more like the past 5 years at least). This has been known for years if not decades(even more to actual smokers).It's not magic, it's the human body. It's the reason why people still smoke even though they know it's bad (usually people with very high physical activity: drivers, etc).People with less physical activity can drop smoking faster because they're tenfold more affected by it. Smoking is bad,especially if one does very little physical activity.There's a very deep psychological explanation for people's desire to smoke (besides entourage,desire to 'fit in',etc), which is that people literally forget to breathe in our societies.This is due to a long list of reasons: sedentary lives, stress, imposed 'time' schedules that force us to deny the needs of our bodies, less desire to breathe due to low quality of oxygen,etc. BBC using the word magically here is very hypocritical, knowing that they'd jump to disprove any narratives that contradict their own agendas at any given time.BBC knows this is not magic, but then again mass-media in US and other places is thankfully dying, sparing our lives from the miserable, garbage tier articles of this kind.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Gatsky 7y ago

Well this is interesting, but of course lots of smokers never quit and you only need one cell to turn into a cancer and kill you. On a related note, I think the demonstration that lung cells and lung cancers bear the stigmata of tobacco related mutagenesis has some significance to the legal liability of Big Tobacco. With this data one can show that a particular cancer in a particular person began from a single cell which was mutated by tobacco exposure. This is one level up from saying tobacco merely increases the risk of cancer on average, which is always open to the counter-argument that some other factor could have caused the particular cancer in the particular person. Whole genome sequencing of tumour and germline DNA can be had for about $5k these days plus analysis costs, so a class action suit or even individual suits are very feasible. There will be no shortage of oncologists and genomics people happy to help out with this.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

tus88 7y ago

I didn't think BBC did sponsored articles?

type-2 7y ago

I pick up smoking a few in a gap of a few months. Then I feel guilty and stop for a few months. I have been smoking about 50 cigs year. Truth is I don't think I can really quit. Forget addiction, I just like it that much. It is so much fun. I remember my first cig. It was so much fun. That's all it took

adreamingsoul 7y ago

A lot of people smoke in Portland, Oregon and Oslo, Norway. At least that is my impression as I don’t have any facts or figures. But of the people I do see smoking, a significant portion of them are young. Another interesting to me observation is the way cigarettes smoke smells in Portland vs. Oslo. I don’t smoke, and don’t enjoy the smell and damage it does to the environment. If only people could properly dispose of their cigarette butts and snooze packets.

diob 7y ago

I guess this is good news for me, since I grew up with parents who chainsmoked indoors. I wish there was some way to make such a thing illegal, other children shouldn't have to grow up how I did.

9dev 7y ago

I stopped smoking almost a year ago, having smoked heavily (~25/D) from 16-25. Quitting was the best decision of my life so far: I run up stairs without thinking, my senses are sharpened and I generally feel way better than before. But most importantly, I don't have the ffing urge to smoke a cigarette whenever I have five minutes of time, and especially when I don't have those five minutes. I get up in the morning and just drink an espresso, I barely use my balcony anymore. I work in concentrated periods of 2-4 hours, because you know what? That smoking break you need to stay creative, it's of course just a convenient lie to yourself. I go to parties and can stay inside for as long as I want to, and I still get to talk to people. I like to say i woke up and the urge was gone, but that isn't the full truth. The days before I quit I had extreme anxiousness and couldn't sleep, thinking about how much I love life and what plans I have and how I want to have children - and how stupid it is to inhale smoke that kills you and doesn't even taste that good in exchange. I didn't want to die. Next day, halfway through the second one, I noticed they really don't taste good and decided to quit.

agumonkey 7y ago

Still curious about the research about THC induced apoptosis in lung alveolas. I've been thinking of making a tiny bowl-vaporizer to inhale THC in small doses just to cleanse my lungs.

eecc 7y ago

Possible that the mutations have some sort of selective advantage while smoking which ceases to matter once quit. The non-mutated ones become again the one that express the more favorable genome for the current environment and take over from there.

KozmoNau7 7y ago

My dad had heart surgery ~16 years ago, due to the effects of smoking. He quit from one day to the next, and didn't touch tobacco at all after that, started working out, cooking and eating healthier food, started playing the drums again, he got a new lease on life. He passed away a couple of weeks ago at the age of 62, due to heart issues, a delayed consequence of smoking and a traditional diet heavy in saturated fat. Living clean(-ish) for 16 years doesn't completely absolve you of your unhealthy habits earlier in life. Don't start smoking, don't let your diet get shitty and full of saturated fat and sugar. Otherwise it will suck later in life, and sometimes sooner than you think.

ArcMex 7y ago

I smoked for 8 years before quitting three years ago. I breathe easier, got my appetite back and my social life improved. I can smell things. I can taste food again. I can talk to people without worrying about offensive breath. Smoking takes away more than you may know. I'm 29 and wish I had quit much, much earlier. Lots of damaged relationships in my past. Those, unlike my lungs, have sadly not started to heal.

dasKrokodil 7y ago
How did smoking damage your relationships?

onetimemanytime 7y ago

Lungs heal damage from smoking...or better late than never. Even according to article they never heal 100% (just 40%) and smoking also screws up about everything else in the body. But, as soon as you stop smoking things "better"...

d--b 7y ago

My in-law is an uncologist, and told me this 10 years ago: If you smoke 1 pack a day for 15 years (what they call "15 pack.years"), your lungs will completely heal, and you have no more risk than the next guy to get lung cancer. After 15 pack.years, then the risk starts to increase significantly.

superpermutat0r 7y ago
There must be some hormesis from smoking. Young human body can adapt and work around stress, be it from smoking or exercise or alcohol. It is definitely a huge problem to maintain these physiologically stressful habits into old age when body no longer has the work capacity or ability to adapt.

meerita 7y ago

I quit 9 years ago. I am a new person. If you can read spanish (Google Translate will work well), I've described how i've quit smoking. http://minid.net/2012/12/10/como-realmente-pude-dejar-de-fumar/ http://minid.net/2012/12/10/como-realmente-pude-dejar-de-fum...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

operatorius 7y ago

I have attempted numerous times quitting smoking with no success. During the withdrawls I wasn't able to function properly: blurred vision, couldnt concentrate, mood swings and sleepless nights. Smoking has a negative impact on my both physical and mental health. I have been smoking for almost 10 years, a pack a day Could anyone who have successfully quit smoking share your stories and tips?

contingencies 7y ago
That's expected: I'm yet to meet anyone who can work effectively during withdrawls. To resolve, just leave yourself at home or at a hotel with nobody else, a decent TV serial (BBC's various history documentary series are a great go-to) or computer game and food, and admit it will take three days for cravings to subside. It helps a little if you exercise. It's actually really easy, once you've succeeded once. The real key is then not putting yourself in high risk situations (ie. drinking) for a week or two, because any time you restart is usually because of that. That was my hardest hurdle. It can help to sync the quit with a change of environment or heavy endurance exercise (eg. multi-day hiking/cycle-touring which helps clear your lungs). Don't try to quit while stressed out at work or on a short timeline, that's just self defeating.
stolenmerch 7y ago
I was in the same exact boat as you but have been free of it for 10 years now. I was terrified because I NEEDED cigarettes to concentrate and do my job. I couldn't envision doing challenging technical work without regular smoke breaks. I tried to quit several times and always relapsed. The only thing that worked for me was to slowly cut back and let my brain adjust. Finally, when I was down to 1-2 cigs per day, I set a cold turkey date. I still had to white knuckle it through the first 3 weeks of zero cigarettes but the cravings eventually began to die down. For maybe the first year after that I had triggers every month or so I had to manage, but I didn't want to stumble so I just powered through them. Finally, I stopped having cravings. I know some people say they still have cravings 20 years later but I don't. I stand outside with smoker friends and don't feel any need to join them. All the good things about not smoking have come true for me. It's so worth the up-front struggle. Please try your hardest and it WILL work!

lysp 7y ago

Just saw these graphs quoted. https://twitter.com/Clive_Bates/status/1222799694453264385 https://twitter.com/Clive_Bates/status/1222799694453264385 > The Doll et al 50 year study of doctors nailed this in 2004 (see charts). Smokers avoid almost all premature mortality risk if they quit by age 40 and benefit at any age.

wazoox 7y ago

Two of my friends had a close call last month. One had an emergency quadruple bypass. The other one has COPD and fell down to 15% of normal lung capacity, and is now under 24/24h oxygen, hoping for a pair of new lungs...

dghughes 7y ago

It's strange how lungs can recover most of the time from smoking but not from particles. COPD is a terrible disease my father has it along with IPF (scars on lungs). He smoked early in his life but quit around age 30. Smoking is one of the causes of COPD but so is inhaling small particles like dust and fumes.

apta 7y ago

It's absurd and unbelievable that smoking is not categorically banned. Cigarette companies should be shut down point blank. Absolutely nothing good comes out of smoking, other than making some people rich at the expense of the health of the population, the tax payers' money, and the environment.

throw3356112 7y ago

To quit smoking, there is something like a 'miracle' book, judging by reviews - 'Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking'. Has anyone here read it? I don't smoke btw.