It's a known fact that cigarette smoking is hazardous to one's health. According to the U.S. Center for disease control and prevention, smoking has caused the majority of lung cancer deaths and is responsible for 90 percent of all lung cancer deaths in men and about 80 percent in women.

Those who have picked up this habit may want to know that scientists from the University of California, Davis, have finally been able to pinpoint what causes cancer in cigarette smoke: hydrogen peroxide and similar oxidants.

The researchers exposed different sets of human lung airway cells in a controlled environment (i.e. the laboratory) to cigarette smoke and hydrogen peroxide. After exposure, the cells were then incubated for one to two days then assessed for signs of cancer development.

Interestingly enough, the cells exposed to cigarettes smoke and the cells exposed to hydrogen peroxide exhibited similar molecular signatures of cancer development.

While research on this is still in its early stages, these new findings may eventually lead to the creation of safer cigarettes and even create a new method in developing lung cancer treatments. The senior author of the report, Tzipora Goldkorn, spoke about their team's findings:

With the five-year survival rate for people with lung cancer at a dismally low 15.5 percent, we hope this study will provide better insight into the identification of new therapeutic targets.

Guns kill, bombs kill and cigarettes kill. While biologists can't do much about the first two, studies like this will help in the fight against tobacco-related death and disease. These experiments not only pin-point new molecular targets for cancer treatment, but also identify culprits in cigarette smoke that eventually will do the smoker in.