How chemical in car fumes and trendy wood burners causes cancer

A CHEMICAL in diesel fumes, cosmetics and cleaning products causes cancer by damaging our ability to repair faults in our genes, scientists have found.

Formaldehyde, one of more than 40 toxic pollutants in diesel exhaust, has already been linked to cancer, but now researchers have discovered it can cause it by breaking down the mechanisms which fix damage in our DNA.

The breakthrough explains the harm done to our bodies by the chemical, which is also produced by the smoke from trendy woodburning stoves and by the flavourings of electronic cigarettes.

Professor Ashok Venkitaraman, lead author of the study from the University of Cambridge, said: ‘We knew aldehydes are not nice and have been linked to cancer, but we did not know they damage proteins in the cells important for preventing the DNA damage which causes cancer.

‘We don’t know how much of these chemicals we are breath-

ing in or how long they last in the air after being produced, but aldehydes are found all over the place.’

Nose and throat cancer are particularly linked to formaldehyde, a colourless, strong-smelling gas which is used in embalming.

Aldehydes, the class of chemicals to which it belongs, are made naturally in small quantities within the body, but topped up by the environment.

The study, published in the journal Cell, used genetically-engineered human cells to identify how aldehydes from pollution and other sources could cause cancer. Researchers found the chemicals break down defence mechanisms in normal, healthy cells which help repair the damage to DNA when they divide. It is this damage which leads to cancer.

Responding to the study, Paul Pharoah, professor of cancer epidemiology at the University of Cambridge, said it was important, but ‘has no immediate implications for the general public’.

‘Defence mechanisms’