Smoking and Colorectal Cancer Linked

"It is clear that cigarette smoking is associated with colorectal cancer mortality for both men and women," Ann Chao, a researcher at the American Cancer Society, concludes in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

For several years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have associated smoking with eight types of cancer, but this new report advocates that colorectal cancer be added to that list as a "smoking-related cancer."

The American Cancer Society studied nearly 800,000 men and women for 14 years, and determined that those who smoke develop colorectal cancer more often than those who do not.

The report said the risk of dying from colorectal cancer increases nearly 50 percent for those who start smoking when they are teenagers and smoke 20 or more years when compared to people who never smoke. Smokers who quit, they added, can gradually reduce their risk over 20 years to normal risk levels.

Sources: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Molecular Genetics and Metabolism