Health Diaries > The Lung Cancer Blog

September 4, 2007

A new Dutch study of over 7,000 people has found that current smokers are 50 percent more likely to develop dementia or Alzheimer's disease than non-smokers or former smokers.

"Smoking increases the risk of cerebrovascular disease, which is also tied to dementia," study author Dr. Monique Breteler, of Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, said in a prepared statement. "Another mechanism could be through oxidative stress, which can damage cells in the blood vessels and lead to hardening of the arteries. Smokers experience greater oxidative stress than nonsmokers, and increased oxidative stress is also seen in Alzheimer's disease."

The results of the study were published in the Sept. 4 issue of Neurology.

Smokers More Likely to Develop Dementia

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February 9, 2007

A new study has found that 20 percent of women with lung cancer never smoked, suggesting that secondhand smoke may be even more dangerous than previously thought. Non-smoking women appear to be more susceptible than their male counterparts.

Chang said that because more men smoke than women, women may be more likely to be exposed to secondhand smoke, even when they are classified as never-smokers

Many lung cancer cases in nonsmokers, study finds

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February 4, 2007

Researchers at UC San Francisco say lung cancers that are found incidentally during routine x-rays for other reasons, called "incidentalomas," do not usually require lung removal because they are often smaller than lung tumors found when lung cancer was already suspected.

"Not surprisingly," the investigators write, "patients with incidentally detected lung cancer had smaller cancers and earlier-stage disease." In fact, half of all patients with early disease had lung cancer detected by chance.

Lung removal often unneeded for "incidentalomas"

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