Through smoking loss of the Y chromosome

Smokers are at increased risk of losing the Y chromosome

05/12/2014

Older smokers have unusually often no Y chromosome. This was the result of a Swedish study. The dose plays an essential role here: the more smoked, the more likely the loss of the Y chromosome. The absence of the „Manliness chromosome“ is associated with certain diseases such as cancer.

Loss of the Y chromosome increases the risk of cancer
While women are endowed with two X chromosomes, the man makes a Y chromosome a man in addition to an X chromosome. Gender differences are therefore often attributed to the Y chromosome. Although this is not completely correct from a scientific point of view, it has been proven that the Y chromosome is important in determining sex. However, it remains unclear which genes of this chromosome play an essential role in the man's everyday survival. Examinations suggest that the loss of the Y chromosome, which is often the case with age, is associated with the development of various diseases. Researchers led by Lars A. Forsberg at Uppsala University in April said that the loss of the Y chromosome in the blood cells increases the risk of developing cancer and mortality in general.

„Men who lost the Y chromosome in a large proportion of their blood cells had a lower survival rate regardless of the cause of death. We also found a correlation between the loss of the Y chromosome and the risk of cancer mortality, "said Forsberg, who led the study „ScienceDaily“.

Smoking leads to the degradation of the Y chromosome in the blood cells
The same researchers then asked the question, which favors the degradation of the chromosome. To do this, they scoured three different male cohorts with more than 6,000 men and analyzed whether there is a significant correlation between lifestyle factors such as smoking, lack of exercise and alcohol consumption, as well as clinical parameters such as blood pressure, diabetes, body mass index, and cholesterol and the loss of the chromosome. It turned out that only in smoking - apart from the age - there is a clear correlation.

According to the researchers, the risk of cellular chromosome loss in smokers was two and a half to four and a half times higher than that of non-smokers. In addition, heavy smokers were more affected by the degradation of the Y chromosome, so that a dose seems to exist.

The loss of the Y chromosome may weaken the immune cells
To what extent the loss of the chromosome actually favors the development of cancer remains unclear. As the researchers write, it might be possible that affected immune cells in the blood can no longer respond as effectively to cancer cells. This, in turn, may explain in part why men have a shorter life expectancy compared to women, and why nicotine use is more dangerous for men.

„The finding that smoking causes the loss of the Y chromosome thus associates an avoidable risk factor with the most commonly acquired mutations in humans“, the researchers report in the journal „Science“, in which her study was published. A good reason to stop smoking. (Ag)