Longterm smoking linked to gene

For most people, the first experimental drags on a cigarette bring on nausea, coughing and other signals from the brain that say, "Turn back. This is a bad idea." But for some, they bring a wave of pleasure.

Those in the second group likely bear a gene type that not only increases their addiction risk, but has been implicated in the development of lung cancer, researchers said on Friday.

"If you have this variant, you are going to like your earliest experiences with smoking," said Ovide Pomerleau of the University of Michigan Medical School, whose research appears in the journal Addiction.

Pomerleau said the finding suggests that for some, smoking even one cigarette is a bad idea. "It's a trap," he said in a telephone interview.

"What they don't realize is if they have this kind of genetic make-up, they are on their way to dependency," he said, and that raises their risk for lung cancer.

The research is part of a growing understanding of genetic factors involved in nicotine addiction and lung cancer.

Teams of scientists reported earlier this year that smokers who had certain changes in three nicotine receptor genes -- which control entry of nicotine into brain cells -- were more likely to develop lung cancer than other smokers.

This week, Canadian researchers said that, by manipulating receptors for the chemical dopamine, they were able to control which rats in a study enjoyed their first exposure to nicotine and which were repelled by it.

Pomerleau said the field may soon lead to new treatments for nicotine addiction and tests to assess addiction risks.

Smoking causes nine out of 10 cases of lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer death in men worldwide and the second-leading cause of cancer death among women.

Pomerleau and colleagues studied data from 435 people. Some had tried a cigarette but never developed a habit; others smoked at least five cigarettes a day for the past five years.

Regular smokers in the study were far more likely than those who had never smoked to have a change in the CHRNA5 nicotine receptor gene. Smokers were eight times more likely to report liking cigarettes from the start.

Pomerleau said work has begun to develop a genetic screen for the CHRNA5 variant. Two other researchers on the team, Laura Bierut and John Rice at Washington University, hold a patent on the gene variant, which has been licensed by privately held Perlegen Sciences Inc.

Pfizer Inc, maker of the smoking cessation drug Chantix owns a $50 million stake in Perlegen.

Pomerleau, who has served on Pfizer's scientific advisory board, said he favors development of diagnostic tests, as long as people understand it is not the only risk factor for nicotine addiction.

"What we don't know is far greater than what we do know," he said.

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Germany's indoor smoking ban ruled

A German ban on smoking in indoor public places should be overturned for small bars, the country's highest court ruled on Wednesday.

The Karlsruhe-based Federal Constitutional Court said small bars were at an unfair disadvantage due to the ban, rendering it in breach of the constitution. The measures came into effect in most of Germany's 16 states at the start of the year.

The ruling upheld a complaint lodged by the owners of two small bars in Berlin and a disco operator in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, who argued the anti-smoking legislation had put their business at risk.

Almost a third of the population smokes in Germany, where lighting up became a badge of freedom and tolerance after Hitler's Nazi regime cracked down on the habit in the 1930s.

An attempt by the federal government to introduce a nationwide ban failed in 2006, and many bars and restaurants in Berlin flouted the ban when it came into force in January.

Hans-Juergen Papier, the court's president, said the law would need to be redrawn by the end of 2009. Until then, smoking should be allowed in bars and restaurants of less than 75 square meters that lack a separate smokers' area, he said.

In the case of the disco, the court said the ban should be repealed for discos open only to adults.

As most of Germany's states have similar smoking laws to Berlin and Baden-Wuerttemberg, the ruling is likely to set a precedent for future complaints.

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Secondhand smoke risks spouse's life

Nonsmokers married to smokers have a greatly increased chance of having strokes, according to a U.S. study published on Tuesday showing yet another hazard from secondhand smoke.

Being married to a smoker raised the stroke risk by 42 percent in people who have never smoked compared to those married to someone who never smoked, the researchers said.

This jumped to 72 percent for former smokers married to a current smoker, according to the study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Former smokers who were married to smokers had a stroke risk similar to people who themselves were smokers.

"Quitting smoking helps your own health and also the health of the people living with you," Maria Glymour of Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and Columbia University in New York, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

The study involved 16,225 people aged 50 and up who had never had a stroke. They were followed for an average of nine years.

Glymour said there is accumulating evidence about the number of health problems linked to secondhand smoke.

Previous research had suggested that secondhand smoke increases the risk of stroke, but Glymour said stroke risk has been studied more extensively in smokers than in people exposed to secondhand smoke.

People who breathe in secondhand smoke also have a higher risk of lung cancer, nasal sinus cancer, respiratory tract infections and heart disease, among other conditions.

A 2006 U.S. surgeon general's report said secondhand smoke contains hundreds of chemicals known to be toxic or cancer-causing. These include formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic, ammonia and hydrogen cyanide.

For this study, smoking involved cigarettes and not pipes or cigars. It looked at health consequences for the spouses of smokers, but not at the long-term stroke risk in children of smokers due to secondhand smoke.

"We know that there are a lot of undesirable health consequences for kids, especially asthma and breathing problems that are exacerbated by secondhand smoke," Glymour said.

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