Smoking While Young Tied to Colon Cancer

Two studies involving more than 150,000 people show that cigarette smoking can lead to colon cancer and that smoking at a young age apparently fixes the risk for life, even if the smoking habit is dropped.

“With colon cancer, if you smoke in your 20s, that risk stays with you,” said Dr. Edward Giovannucci of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, the Channing Laboratory and the Harvard School of Public Health. “Even if you stop at age 40, you’ll still be at greater risk.” The risk also is “dose related,” he said. “The more you smoke, the more the risk.”

Other studies show that stopping cigarette smoking at any age, however, does lower the risk of heart disease, lung cancer and other disorders, Giovannucci said.

The colon cancer conclusions are based on a Harvard School of Public Health study of 47,935 men and a Brigham and Women’s study of 118,334 women. Both studies used questionnaires to determine the smoking history of participants and then related that to the rate of colon-rectal cancer in the groups.

The parallel studies are to be published today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.