Tobacco.org

• Gene study explains why smokers are burning the fat as well as cigarettes 

But the real reason why people pile on the pounds after quitting smoking could lie in our DNA.

Scientists have identified a fat-burning gene that becomes more active when exposed to cigarette smoke.

The finding could help explain why slim smokers find their weight starts to balloon after the final cigarette is stubbed out.

But anti-smoking groups warned against smokers using the research to justify a habit that kills more than 120,000 Britons a year.

The scientists, from Cornell University in New York, focused on a gene called AZGP1 (alphazincglycoprotein1) which makes a protein that speeds up the breakdown of fat.

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