07-06-2010, 08:13 PM
In short - yes.....you can smoke your whole life and still NOT get lung cancer. It IS possible, and NO, not EVERY smoker will get lung cancer.
People don't always realize it takes about 8 different "assaults" on a particular cell, to stuff up the part of it that tells it when to replicate, and when to stop - even when to die.....cells have termination signals when the cell is no longer functioning or needed - for example red blood cells only live for about 120 days (but more new ones are also constantly being made).
But when a cell has been bombarded by carcinogenic (cancer-causing) things a number of times and usually over a long period, a cell can then switch into overdrive, start multiplying out of control - and there you have a cancer.
So if a smoker lived a reasonably healthy life, that would help them avoid cancer.
BUT....nobody knows for sure. You could be the fittest, most healthy person on the planet, except you smoke, and you die at 40 from lung cancer. Or you could smoke 3 packs a day, drink alcohol like water and live a life full of "things that are bad for you" (!!)....and live to be 110.
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