Smokers today may be more strongly influenced by genetic
predispositions than in generations past, and that may be making
it harder for them to quit, a new study suggests. That’s not to
say that our genes have changed, but rather that the makeup of
the smoking population has. “In the past, when smoking rates
were higher, people smoked for a variety of reasons,” co-author
Fred Pampel, a sociology professor at University of Colorado,
Boulder, said in a statement. “Today…smokers are more likely to
be hard-core users who are most strongly influenced by genetic
factors.” Since the early to mid-1970s, when the first
antismoking measures were being enacted, U.S. smoking rates have
steadily declined. But in 2010, more than 19% of American adults
were still smoking cigarettes, according to the latest
government data. To gauge the extent to which genetic factors
may be influencing smokers’ ability to quit, Pampel and
colleagues studied patterns of tobacco use in pairs of twins.
The new study, published in the journal D