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Science & Ideas 9/18/00 Building a better butt Is it possible to make smoking safer? Or does that just tempt more smokers? By Nancy Shute It's every smoker's dream: Keep the sweet consolation that cigarettes give, but avoid the threat of death. So far that dream has remained an illusion. Smoking is the largest preventable cause of death in the United States, claiming more than 400,000 victims a year. And cigarettes remain the world's only major consumer product–…

…drank alcohol, 76 percent had p53 mutations in their cancer cells, compared with 42 percent of the nondrinkers. Only one of the nonsmokers with lung cancer had p53 mutations, regardless of alcohol use. Scientists suspect that alcohol interferes with the body's ability to convert carcinogenic chemicals in smoke into more benign substances that it can eliminate. Alcohol may also disrupt the body's ability to repair DNA that has been damaged by the carcinogens. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography** usnews.com