Not smoking ≠ not getting lung cancer

I believe that you often see news reports like this: "Man got lung cancer after smoking for 30 years" and "Housewife got lung cancer after cooking without using the range hood". When you see such headlines, do you instantly think that smoking and not using the range hood will cause lung cancer? But is this really the case?

Not smoking ≠ not getting lung cancer

About a quarter of lung cancer cases worldwide occur in people who have smoked fewer than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime. In Europe and the United States, never-smokers account for 10-15% of lung cancers. In Southeast Asia, half of all women who develop lung cancer have never smoked. In fact, if lung cancer in never-smokers were considered a distinct disease, it would be the seventh leading cancer killer worldwide.

But I often hear people around me say that someone smoked for decades without any problems, but after quitting smoking, they were diagnosed with lung cancer. Is this a coincidence? Of course not, but it does show that the occurrence of cancer is caused by multiple internal and external factors.

People who have smoked for a long time but have not developed lung cancer are truly one of the lucky few.

Scientific research has proven that lung cancer is caused by external pathogenic factors that ignite carcinogenic factors in the body. Therefore, whether you will get lung cancer depends not only on external pathogenic factors (smoking, smog, etc.), but also on internal carcinogenic factors. Therefore, those who have smoked all their lives and have never gotten lung cancer are just lucky because they don’t have such carcinogenic factors in their bodies.

Are there many people who do not have this lung cancer-causing factor in their bodies?

Unfortunately, this is not a lot, and as you smoke longer, your risk of lung cancer will increase. If you are not so lucky and the carcinogenic factors in your body are detonated, then lung cancer will come to you!!! Long-term smokers must be vigilant.

Lung cancer patients who do not smoke often present with non-small cell lung cancer subtypes. Smoking patients are more likely to present with squamous cell carcinoma and small cell lung cancer. From the perspective of the type of onset, the two are different. The main reason why non-smokers get lung cancer is because of their "gene mutations". So don't think that lung cancer will stay away from you if you don't smoke!