{"id":34151,"date":"2014-12-06T19:55:00","date_gmt":"2014-12-06T11:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=34151"},"modified":"2015-09-19T12:07:12","modified_gmt":"2015-09-19T04:07:12","slug":"researchers-find-why-smoking-riskier-for-men-than-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/12\/06\/researchers-find-why-smoking-riskier-for-men-than-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers find why smoking riskier for men than women"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WASHINGTON — Men who smoke are over three times more likely than nonsmokers to lose their Y chromosomes, according to researchers who have previously shown that loss of the Y chromosome is linked to cancer.<\/p>\n

The study, published Thursday in the U.S. journal Science, may help explain why smoking is a greater risk factor for males compared to females and, in the broader perspective, also why men in general have a shorter life expectancy.<\/p>\n

Only men have the Y chromosome, which is important for sex determination and sperm production.<\/p>\n

“We have previously in 2014 demonstrated an association between loss of the Y chromosome in blood and greater risk for cancer. We now tested if there were any lifestyle or clinical factors that could be linked to loss of the Y chromosome,” said Lars Forsberg of Uppsala University in Sweden, who led the study, in a statement.<\/p>\n

“Out of a large number of factors that were studied, such as age, blood pressure, diabetes, alcohol intake and smoking, we found that loss of the Y chromosome in a fraction of the blood cells was more common in smokers than in non-smokers,” said Forsberg.<\/p>\n

The risk was dose dependent, meaning that loss of the Y chromosome was more common in heavy smokers compared to moderate smokers. Some men who quit smoking even appeared to regain their Y chromosomes.<\/p>\n

“These results indicate that smoking can cause loss of the Y chromosome and that this process might be reversible,” Forsberg said. “This discovery could be very persuasive for motivating smokers to quit.”<\/p>\n

How loss of the Y chromosome is connected with the development of cancer throughout the body is still not clear, the researchers said. One possibility is that immune cells in blood, that have lost their Y chromosome, have a reduced capacity to fight cancer cells.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON — Men who smoke are over three times more likely than nonsmokers to lose their Y chromosomes, according to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":16154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","mauthors-xinhua-news-agency-via-philippines-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}