03:15 PM EST on Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Tina Donnelly has no doubt been heavily exposed to the dangers of cigarette smoke.

“It has gotten less and I am at about a pack and a half a day, and I have been smoking just because time passes so quick for 36 years,” admitted Tina.

She knows the risks, except for perhaps the latest identified in new research in the Archives of Internal Medicine - the risk of colon cancer.

“Heart disease lung cancer, I thought that was bad enough. I didn’t know about the colon cancer,” she said.

A new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine  found smoking, as well as drinking, caused, on average, an earlier onset of colon cancer by more than five years!

Tina just turned 50, and a year ago, got her first colonoscopy to screen for colon cancer. 50 is the recommended age to be first screened.  But because of Tina’s cigarette habit alone, should she have started even earlier?

The problem is there is no specific recommendation as to when a smoker or a drinker for that matter should get screened with colonoscopy is it 35, 40, 45 at this point it is almost as if common sense dictates.

Dr. Michael Barth, a gastroenterologist in Wantagh, NY, says, “It doesn’t say what age here, the guidelines were written before these patients were looked at, so they looked at over a 160,000 patients over ten years with colon cancer and they found that patients who smoked and drank had colon cancer at a younger age so the recommendations would be at least I would tell my patients if you smoke or drink alcohol you should get screened at an earlier age and I would give them the information from this article and I would let them make the decision.”

The drinking finding was even less clear.

“In this article they didn’t know how much drinking the people did whether it was a lot or a little or one drink a day but they were regular alcohol users,” says Dr, Barth.

And certainly there is evidence to support perhaps a drink a day as a healthy thing to do for preventing cardiovascular disease.

But clearly, this study is at very least another reason to kick the tobacco habit.

“Seriously yes it is a horrible stupid habit and I should be able to take control of it,” admits Tina, who says she is going to quit.  “I am going to start tomorrow.”