More and more teenagers start to smoke. Some of them find it enjoyable and some don’t want to try a second time. Scientists have discovered that the people who have enjoyed smoking from their first puff have something related to a variant gene. These are the people who were likely to become the regular smokers.

Scientists from the University of Michigan went on with their study discovering that a person decides to smoke for the first time and will become regular smoker because of a mixture of genes and also because of environmental factors and social pressures.

The researchers think that if they get to find the genetic secrets of smoking and nicotine addiction, they could stop people from starting smoking in the first place and could warn them what to do to leave the bad habit.

CHRNA5, the gene that controls smoking preferences, has been discovered as the one which gives nicotine addiction and it could more easily increase the chances that a smoker develops lung cancer.

435 volunteers were the subjects of this study. Some of them were regular smokers and the others weren’t currently smokers but they had tried cigarettes. The regular smokers were more likely to have a change in the CHRNA5 nicotine receptor gene. These smokers were just the ones who were reported to like cigarettes from the start.

"If cigarette smoking is sustained, nicotine addiction can occur in a few days to a few months - the finding of a genetic association with pleasurable early smoking experiences may help explain how people get addicted," the researchers say.