Women who don't smoke can also get lung cancer?

Lung cancer has always been called "male cancer" and is usually associated with men, and the biggest cause is smoking. However, the incidence of lung cancer in women, who are considered to stay away from tobacco, has increased rapidly in recent years around the world, which is quite puzzling. Statistics from 2015 show that the smoking rate of men in my country is 52.1%, while that of women is only 2.7%. In that year, the incidence of lung cancer in Chinese men was 50.9/100,000 person-years, while the incidence of lung cancer in Chinese women was as high as 22.4/100,000 person-years. The current surge in the incidence of lung cancer in women has attracted much attention and concern.

However, how did this happen? Are there any effective preventive measures? This is the focus of today's analysis.

"Second-hand smoke" makes women passive victims

The correlation between passive smoking and lung cancer has been confirmed. Secondhand smoke often contains more harmful substances than mainstream smoke, such as 2 times the nicotine, 3 times the tar, 5 times the carbon monoxide and about 50 times the carcinogens.

Some women who live with smokers, especially those whose spouses are long-term smokers, have a 6-fold higher chance of developing lung cancer than the average person. For those who have lived in a family for more than 30 years, the risk factor is even higher. Among patients who died of lung cancer, 87% were caused by smoking, including passive smoking. Therefore, in order to prevent lung cancer, women should not only not smoke themselves, but also stay away from the harm of passive smoking.

Kitchen fumes cause lung cancer

In addition to cigarettes, cooking fumes are also an important factor in women getting lung cancer. The cooking fumes produced by home cooking are the main source of pollution in the kitchen environment. Women have many opportunities to cook and are easily invaded by thick smoke. If rapeseed oil is used for stir-frying or frying food, it will emit fumes containing chemical mutagens; or if inferior oil is used that has been stored for too long, it often contains free fatty acids, aldehydes, and ketones. When the oil temperature reaches a certain height, it is very easy to volatilize fumes containing a variety of harmful substances. These fume particles have been tested and proven to be carcinogenic.

Hidden carcinogen - "mental stress"

Stress always invisibly reduces people's immunity, giving cancer cells an opportunity to multiply and worsen. The tension in women's roles creates heavy psychological pressure and mental burden. In the current social transformation period, women's specific professional and family roles will be subject to psychological shocks from work, family, emotions and other aspects during their performance, which can easily lead to role tension for women, causing mental and physical exhaustion, long-term depression, excessive stress, and some psychogenic diseases. During this period, immunity decreases, laying a dangerous root cause for the occurrence of lung cancer in women.

Air pollution is inevitable

Outdoor air pollution and haze weather are important factors in the occurrence of lung cancer. The impact of air pollution on the incidence of lung cancer is delayed, but the impact does exist. In haze weather, reduce outdoor activities as much as possible, and wear a mask when you must go out.

More than 80% of human daily activities are indoors. Paying attention to indoor air pollution, which is closely related to work and life, is the key to preventing lung cancer. There are three standards for healthy and safe indoor air, namely constant oxygen, circulation, and cleanliness. The six main factors that lead to indoor air pollution are outdoor air pollution, tobacco smoke pollution, kitchen fume pollution, decoration material pollution, electromagnetic radiation, and bacteria; and the six main places with serious indoor air pollution are subways, cars, living rooms, kitchens, offices, and conference rooms.

Occupational carcinogens

Occupational factors that have been confirmed to cause lung cancer in humans include asbestos, arsenic, chromium, nickel, beryllium, coal tar, mustard gas, trichloromethyl ether, chloromethyl methyl ether, heating products of tobacco, and radon and radon protons produced by the decay of radioactive substances such as uranium and radium, ionizing radiation and microwave radiation. These factors can increase the risk of lung cancer by 3 to 30 times. Among them, asbestos is a recognized carcinogen. The incidence of lung cancer, pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma in those exposed to it is significantly increased, and the incubation period can be up to 20 years or longer. The lung cancer mortality rate of smokers exposed to asbestos is 8 times that of non-exposed smokers.

Genetic factors are also a contributing factor

70% of lung cancer in Asian women is lung adenocarcinoma in non-smokers, which suggests that there may be other factors for lung cancer in women, such as genetic, biological and endocrine factors. Non-smoking women with a family history of lung cancer have a significantly higher risk of lung cancer than those without a family history of lung cancer, suggesting that a family history of lung cancer is also a high-risk factor. Lung cancer is one of the malignant tumors with a clear genetic tendency, and its hereditary nature is particularly evident in women. A survey by Japanese scholars showed that 35.8% of patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the lung had a family history; among female patients with alveolar cell carcinoma, as many as 58.3% had a family history.

In short, the high incidence of lung cancer among Chinese women is caused by the combined effects of kitchen fumes, air pollution, passive smoking and genetic factors. Lung cancer prevention also needs to start with the following factors: promote healthy cooking methods and use range hoods correctly; do not barbecue indoors; say no to tobacco smoke, do not smoke first-hand smoke, refuse second-hand smoke and be wary of third-hand smoke; stay away from carcinogens.