Hydrogen peroxide.  Yep, the same chemical we use to disinfect minor cuts, scrapes, and road rash can, when exposed to lung cells, cause cancer.  

Hydrogen peroxide, a chemical cousin of water (H2O2), is highly oxidative (which is why it makes for a great disinfectant), has previously been shown to cause a mutation in a cellular component associated with various forms of cancer.  The researchers naturally reasoned, “Well, if H2O2 is a major constituent of cigarette smoke, how might the two compare?”

Now, please don’t misinterpret this as saying, “Don’t disinfect your kid’s scraped knee, he or she will get knee cancer!”   

The recent study published in the journal FASEB took lung cells cultured in the laboratory and exposed them to three treatments: H2O2 alone, cigarette smoke along, and clean air.  They observed the lung cells for specific cellular changes unique to those that precede cancer.  Indeed, both cigarette smoke and H2O2 produced similar responses, leaving the author’s to infer, “we not only show that cigarette smoke can activate the EGFR [the cellular component alluded to above] in a dose- and time-dependent manner, but it also aberrantly phosphorylates [i.e. promotes the cell to enter a cancerous state] the receptor.” 

“Guns kill, bombs kill and cigarettes kill,” said Gerald Weissmann, MD, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. “While biologists can’t do much about the first two, studies like this will help in the fight against tobacco-related death and disease.  These experiments not only pin-point new molecular targets for cancer treatment, but also identify culprits in cigarette smoke that eventually will do the smoker in.”

Source: fasebj.org