Today's post was shared by CDC Cancer and comes from www.cdc.gov
Risk Factors
Research has found several risk factors for lung cancer. A risk factor is anything that increases the chance of getting a disease.
Examples of risk factors for lung cancer include—
- Smoking tobacco and being around others' smoke.
- Exposures at home or work (such as radon gas or asbestos).
- Personal history (such as having radiation therapy or a family history of lung cancer).
We know a lot about risk factors, but they don't tell us everything. Some people who get cancer don't seem to have any known risk factors. Other people have one or more risk factors and do not get cancer. If a person has several risk factors and develops lung cancer, we don’t know how much each risk factor contributed to the cancer.
Smoking and Secondhand Smoke
Cigarette smoking is the number one risk factor for lung cancer. In the United States, cigarette smoking causes about 90% of lung cancers. Tobacco smoke is a toxic mix of more than 7,000 chemicals. Many are poisons. At least 70 are known to cause cancer in people or animals. People who smoke are 15 to 30 times more likely to get lung cancer or die from lung cancer than people who do not smoke. Even smoking a few cigarettes a day or smoking occasionally increases the risk of lung cancer. The more years a person smokes and the more cigarettes smoked each day, the more risk goes up.
People who quit smoking have a lower risk of lung cancer than if they had continued to smoke, but their risk is higher than the risk for people who...
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