Cigarettes
A smoker places a cigarette stub on a tray filled with stubs beside a road in Las Pinas city, Metro Manila August 7, 2015. The country's Court of Appeals has ruled on Wednesday that the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) cannot implement an anti-smoking campaign in the capital, but MMDA official Cora Jimenez said they would not stop their anti-smoking drive, because their mandate includes health and sanitation and environmental protection, citing Republic Act 7924, media reports said. Reuters

Scientists have found that the mystery of why some people still have healthy lungs despite a lifetime of smoking was caused by DNA mutations protecting them from developing deadly lung conditions. The Medical Research Council said that “good genes" enhanced the smokers’ lung function against the effects of nicotine.

Good genes were found in more than 50,000 people that have been analysed in the study, which appeared to be protected by mutated DNA. The common impact of nicotine, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, or COPD, which causes breathlessness, coughing and repeat chest infections, has been observed for the study.

The analysis shows that sections of the DNA can reduce the risk of COPD. The findings suggest that certain people with the mutated DNA are at lower risk of developing lung disease despite their heavy smoking habit.

About three million people in the UK are believed to be suffering from the lung condition, including bronchitis and emphysema, the BBC reported. The findings, according to Medical Research Council scientists, could lead to developments of new drugs to enhance lung function.

However, the researchers of the study, published in the journal of the Lancet Respiratory Medicine, noted that quitting smoking will always be the best solution to avoid the deadly impacts of cigarettes. Professor Martin Tobin, from the University of Leicester, said that in some long-time smokers, genes appear to influence how the lungs grow and respond to injury.

But good genes still "doesn't appear to be any kind of magic bullet that would give anyone guaranteed protection against tobacco smoke,” he told the BBC. Smokers would still develop unhealthier lungs than they would if they were non-smokers, Tobin added.

Tobin, who presented the study at a meeting of the European Respiratory Society, said that the results offer "fantastic new clues” in the way the body works that experts had little idea about before. The findings would likely “lead to some really exciting breakthroughs for drug development."

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