Smoking remains, by far, the biggest cause of lung cancer.
Local researchers say smoking less could significantly help reduce one's risk of contracting the disease.
Cho Sung-min reports.
It's no secret that smoking is unhealthy.
It hurts the lungs especially,... contributing to almost 90 percent of all lung cancer deaths.
That's why quitting tends to be on so many smokers' to-do lists.
But not everyone succeeds in beating addiction.

In the search for ways to reduce the risk of lung cancer,... local researchers at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital recently used data from the National Health Insurance Service to analyze more than 140-thousand men over 40 years old... who had received medical checkups from 2002 to 2005.

According to the team, smokers can lower their risk of lung cancer by simply smoking fewer cigarettes.
Analysis shows the risk of lung cancer was reduced by up to 45 percent when men who usually smoked ten to twenty cigarettes per day... cut it to fewer than ten a day.

It turns out smoking less also helps prevent other smoking-related diseases, such as stomach and colorectal cancers by up to twenty-six percent.
It also brings down the chance of getting any cancer at all by eighteen percent.

The researchers said their findings have extra significance in the fact that they were drawn from a massive database.
They added that while cutting back on cigarettes can clearly help prevent cancer, the best strategy is to stop smoking for good.
Cho Sung-min, arirang news.