Scientists reveal that they have uncovered how air pollution causes lung cancer in groundbreaking research that looks to overhaul our understanding of the disease.
The findings discovered by scientists at the Francis Crick Institute in London revealed that pollution in the air “awakens” dormant and damaged cells and prompts them into a cancerous state.
Understanding
Prof Charles Swanton, one of the world’s leading experts, said: “The risk of lung cancer from air pollution is lower than from smoking, but we have no control over what we all breathe.
“Globally, more people are exposed to unsafe levels of air pollution than to toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke, and these new data link the importance of addressing climate health to improving human health.”
Despite smoking remaining as the biggest cause of the disease, one in 10 cases in the UK are as a result of air pollution. Globally, in 2019, approximately 300,000 lung cancer deaths were due to the exposure of a form of pollution called particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5).
One of the key findings is that breathing in PM2.5 brings about the release of a chemical alarm – interleukin-1-beta – in the lungs. However, the biological reason why air pollution causes cancer remains obscure.
“Clearly these patients are getting cancer without having mutations, so there’s got to be something else going on,” Swanton continued.
‘New Era’
Researchers, who also work at the University of London, undertook a range of human and animal experiments displaying findings that could lead to a “new era” of molecular cancer prevention and a better understanding of the disease.
Prof Tony Mok, of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and who was not involved in the research, said: “We have known about the link between pollution and lung cancer for a long time, and we now have a possible explanation for it.”
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