4 ms·

Yes, but are the claims true? Have studies failed to show stopping smoking doesn't help you live longer? And the Japanese _are_ fairly heavy smokers yet have v

Yes, but are the claims true? Have studies failed to show stopping smoking doesn't help you live longer? And the Japanese _are_ fairly heavy smokers yet have very long lives. That's not to say I don't thinking smoking is really bad for you. It's an addictive drug, reduces lung capacity and I've known people being treated for emphysema in their 30's etc. But the article makes some interesting claims about how politically charged the issue around smoking is, real science is getting squelched, people ask earnest questions and have their sanity questioned. Don't know if any of it's true, but with the Global Warming "science" we've been seeing lately, it wouldn't surprise me if the risk of cigarettes has been way oversold.

jawngee 17y ago
Probably because their diets are vastly superior to everyone else's. So people predisposed to live longer are going to live longer, even if smoking takes a few years off their lives.
patrickas 17y ago
I think the claims are true, but the headline and content is a bit over dramatized. Here are the studies, you can draw your own conclusions: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1573365 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1573365 "The subjects were 1445 male smokers, initially aged 40-59 years" ... 20 years later "total mortality was 7% lower" for people who stopped smoking (7% is barely significant given the sample size) And also http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00000487 http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00000487 Showing similar results.
- elai 17y ago
  How about people who start smoking in their teens, and then stop in their early/mid twenties? The effects of quitting smoking then would probably far more beneficial than a smoker who's been smoking for 30 years and then quits.
hga 17y ago
Based on a variety of things including an statement by my favorite professor, I think it's not so much that smoking is deadly by itself, but smoking and most anything else is, e.g.: He said smoking in the context of a city's pollution was very bad, that e.g. Kansas wheat farmers had problems related to the wheat farming but were otherwise OK (he was an M.D. and smoked, BTW, took lots of Vitamin A and so on and he'll turn 90 next year...). It's well established (to my satisfaction, at least) that radon is mostly dangerous in the context of heavy smoking (which after all is where the initial study came from, of uranium miners). The risks of smoking and lots of things like birth control pills are well established. I'd also note that there's going to be genetic variability here that will make smoking much worse for some fraction of the population. (On the other hand, as someone with severe allergies, I'm not entirely unhappy with the results of the US crusade against smoking....)
brazzy 17y ago
> And the Japanese _are_ fairly heavy smokers yet have very long lives. That's funny because I was going to write "I don't know how much truth is in what he writes about all those studies, but that statememt is complete bullshit". I've lived in Japan for a year, and my personal experience is that the Japanese smoke very little.

jawngee 17y ago

Probably because their diets are vastly superior to everyone else's. So people predisposed to live longer are going to live longer, even if smoking takes a few years off their lives.

patrickas 17y ago

I think the claims are true, but the headline and content is a bit over dramatized. Here are the studies, you can draw your own conclusions: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1573365 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1573365 "The subjects were 1445 male smokers, initially aged 40-59 years" ... 20 years later "total mortality was 7% lower" for people who stopped smoking (7% is barely significant given the sample size) And also http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00000487 http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00000487 Showing similar results.

elai 17y ago
How about people who start smoking in their teens, and then stop in their early/mid twenties? The effects of quitting smoking then would probably far more beneficial than a smoker who's been smoking for 30 years and then quits.

hga 17y ago

Based on a variety of things including an statement by my favorite professor, I think it's not so much that smoking is deadly by itself, but smoking and most anything else is, e.g.: He said smoking in the context of a city's pollution was very bad, that e.g. Kansas wheat farmers had problems related to the wheat farming but were otherwise OK (he was an M.D. and smoked, BTW, took lots of Vitamin A and so on and he'll turn 90 next year...). It's well established (to my satisfaction, at least) that radon is mostly dangerous in the context of heavy smoking (which after all is where the initial study came from, of uranium miners). The risks of smoking and lots of things like birth control pills are well established. I'd also note that there's going to be genetic variability here that will make smoking much worse for some fraction of the population. (On the other hand, as someone with severe allergies, I'm not entirely unhappy with the results of the US crusade against smoking....)

brazzy 17y ago

> And the Japanese _are_ fairly heavy smokers yet have very long lives. That's funny because I was going to write "I don't know how much truth is in what he writes about all those studies, but that statememt is complete bullshit". I've lived in Japan for a year, and my personal experience is that the Japanese smoke very little.