3 scientific teams find "double whammy" gene tied to smoking
dependency, inability to quit
WA****NGTON (AP) -- Scientists have pinpointed a genetic link that
makes people more prone to get hooked on tobacco, smoke more
cigarettes longer, and develop deadly lung cancer.
Experts say the discovery by three separate teams of scientists
makes the strongest case so far for the biological underpinnings of
the addiction of smoking and how genetics and cigarettes combine in
cancer.
Christopher Amos, a professor of epidemiology at the M.D.
Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and author of one of the studies,
says it is "kind of a double whammy gene." He says the gene makes
people more likely to be dependent on smoking and less likely to
quit.
The three studies, funded by governments in the U.S. and Europe,
are being published Thursday in the journals Nature and Nature
Genetics.
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