A group of British researchers, led by Peter Campbell of the Wellcome Sanger Institute, discovered that the damaged lungs of former smokers are partially regenerating. Their find, published in Nature and reported on the university website The Conversation, has been established in six ex-smokers and has yet to be validated on a larger scale, but this is the first time that such a phenomenon has been identified. It tends to explain why quitting smoking is always beneficial, regardless of the time spent smoking – the sooner, of course, the better.
For further. Smoking has a mutagenic effect. The exposed cells of the bronchi accumulate mutations (from 10 to 15,000 in the study!), Some of which, called “pilots”, favor an uncontrolled multiplication and lead to in fine on the development of lung cancer. However, researchers have discovered in the bronchi of ex-smokers many cells with a normal mutation rate, similar to a non-smoker. It seems that stopping smoking promotes the multiplication of these healthy cells, according to a poorly understood process.
Read on The Conversation
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