on Jan 26th, 2006Like to Smoke? Better Check your Ethnicity
The information age is yielding up all kinds of secrets. Researchers can now build massive databases of information and then perform endless relationship analysis on the numbers. Take smoking. Researchers got curious about whether ethnicity plays a role in the likelihood of a person getting lung cancer. Stunningly, it does.
Death may never take a holiday, but c’mon people, sometimes you can rearrange the calendar.
Blacks are much more likely than whites to get lung cancer from smoking cigarettes, according to a large study that provides significant new evidence in the debate over whether race plays an important role in health.
The eight-year study of more than 183,000 people found that blacks and ethnic Hawaiians are about 55 percent more likely than whites to develop lung cancer from light to moderate smoking. Japanese Americans and Latinos are about 50 percent less likely than whites, the researchers found.
Race May Be Factor In Lung Cancer - Greater Risk Found For Blacks Who Smoke
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 26, 2006; Page A12
Here’s the paper that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine:
Background There is remarkable variation in the incidence of lung cancer among ethnic and racial groups in the United States.
Conclusions Among cigarette smokers, African Americans and Native Hawaiians are more susceptible to lung cancer than whites, Japanese Americans, and Latinos.
Ethnic and Racial Differences in the Smoking-Related Risk of Lung Cancer
Christopher A. Haiman, Sc.D., Daniel O. Stram, Ph.D., Lynne R. Wilkens, Dr.P.H., Malcolm C. Pike, Ph.D., Laurence N. Kolonel, M.D., Ph.D., Brian E. Henderson, M.D., and Loïc Le Marchand, M.D., Ph.D.
Volume 354:333-342, January 26, 2006, Number 4