Almost all healthy people harbor patches of mutated cells
Tissues exposed to the environment such as skin have more mutations, a study finds
Normal isn’t always normal. A new study finds that large groups of cells in healthy tissues carry mutations, including ones tied to cancer.
About 95 percent of healthy people had patches of mutated cells in at least one of the 29 tissues examined, including kidney, muscle and liver, researchers report in the June 7 Science. Most of those mutations found in the 488 people in the study are harmless, but some have been linked to various cancers.