Boston (SmartAboutHealth) - A new study presented at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research has revealed that a simple urine test may predict the lung cancer risk for smokers.

For years, researchers have stated that there is a link between smoking and lung cancer.  Now, a new urine test may be able to actually help label the actual risk for individual smokers.

Researchers from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis carried out their work by collecting samples of people over 3 decades.

In the 1980s, they took samples of 20,000 people from Shanghai, China.  They then took samples of roughly 60,000 people in the 1990s from Singapore.

They monitored the health of these people over the years, and focused on 250 people who developed lung cancer, and around 250 who did not.

All of these people were said to be smokers, as they wanted to see if the urine test could help detect the risk of lung cancer.

Researchers discovered that there were two specific tobacco-related compounds that were linked a risk of lung cancer.

Those who had high levels of these compounds were said to be far more likely to develop lung cancer as smokers.

The increased risk of lung cancer was said to be 8 times higher with high levels of these compounds.

The hope is that this simple urine test could predict lung cancer in smokers and non-smokers so they can get earlier treatment and help.