rodale.com: Men who smoke around the time they get a woman pregnant are increasing the risk that their child will get cancer years down the line, according to a recent study published in American Journal of Epidemiology. Australian studies looked at nearly 400 children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and another group of children without the cancer. They found that a mother's smoking habit didn't affect this type of leukemia risk, but a child born to a father who smoked at least 15 cigarettes a day around the time of conception faced a 35-percent higher risk of being diagnosed.
Looking at that data even more closely, researchers saw that any type of paternal smoking during conception led to a 15-percent increase in leukemia, while smoking 20 or more cigarettes a day increased the odds by nearly 45 percent. Tobacco smoke contains 60 known carcinogens and has been shown to cause DNA damage in sperm.
