India, July 3 -- A new study has found that people who don't smoke can still get lung cancer due to things like air pollution, harmful chemicals, and certain traditional herbal medicines.
"We're seeing this problematic trend that never-smokers are increasingly getting lung cancer, but we haven't understood why," said co-senior author Ludmil Alexandrov.
"Our research shows that air pollution is strongly associated with the same types of DNA mutations we typically associate with smoking."
The study, published in Nature, looked at the full genetic makeup of lung tumors from 871 people around the world who had never smoked. Using advanced DNA testing, scientists identified patterns of genetic mutations that are usually seen in smokers but we...