9 ms·

Smoking and Health (1964)

30 points by apsec112 8y ago

aklemm 8y ago
The story (possibly apocryphal) in my family goes like this: My grandfather who smoked regularly was driving when he heard the first reporting on radio about these findings. He threw his pack out the window (anti-littering didn't take hold til the 80s) and never smoked again.
- wil421 8y ago
  My Grandfather did a similar thing. Small town doctor all his adult like and lived a very heathy life. Smoked up until the day he realized it was very bad and never looked back. Too bad my grandmother couldn’t kick the habit.
- orblivion 8y ago
  > anti-littering didn't take hold til the 80s That's kind of amazing to think. Did it seriously not occur to people that litter just doesn't look nice? Did people not think about cleaning up their rooms either?
  - aklemm 8y ago
    It was weird, and I think about it a lot. In wide open America, it must not have seemed like it would be much of a nuisance. The campaign in the 80s to end littering was really memorable, and it really worked.
  - esotericn 8y ago
    It's hard to explain. I guess we thought that the world was infinite. You just had the idea that, well, it'd blow away in the wind, and that would be that. It's obvious now that this isn't the case. Much like, I imagine, smoking was obviously fine, until it wasn't.
markmm 8y ago
TL:DR Smoking kills
smartbit 8y ago
During the decade 1950-1960, at various dates, statements based upon the accumulated evidence were issued by a number of organizations.... The consensus, publicly declared, was that smoking is an important health hazard, particularly with respect to lung cancer and cardiovascular disease. page 6
leoh 8y ago
I wonder -- if this report had come out today, would as many people have believed it? Would huge numbers of people question it much like people question global warming?
- baron_harkonnen 8y ago
  Even at the time there were articles in Nature protesting this just like people do global warming today: >THE curious associations with lung cancer found in relation to smoking habits do not, in the minds of some of us, lend themselves easily to the simple conclusion that the products of combustion reaching the surface of the bronchus induce, though after a long interval, the development of a cancer. This is the first sentence of the abstract "Cancer and Smoking" published in Nature in 1958, by the father of modern frequentist statistics: Ronald A. Fisher. Fisher published a fair bit on why claims that smoking caused cancer were preposterous arguing that "correlation does not equal causation". Fisher was already a very well respected figure in the statistics community and, despite being a paid researcher for tobacco companies, biographers suggest that his motives were person, he loved smoking and disliked puritanical views on how people should live. So despite being one of the greatest statisticians of all time, Fisher still failed to properly assess the risks of cigarette smoking and cancer.
  - hapless 8y ago
    Fisher's later work on smoking was funded by the tobacco industry. He was paid not to properly assess anything. (Not to mention, Mr. Fisher enjoyed tobacco himself.)
- mikeash 8y ago
  Many people did not believe it. And, just like with global warming, a lot of that was a concerted propaganda effort from the industries who stood to lose the most of people did believe.
m3nu 8y ago
> In comparison with non-smokers, average male smokers of cigarettes have approximately a 9- to 10-fold risk of developing lung cancer and heavy smokers at least a 2O-fold risk. I'm waiting for similar conclusions to surface for added sugar.
- brianwawok 8y ago
  I think its harder to maths out. It's pretty easy to separate people into three groups of smokers. 0 smoking, 5-10 smokes a day, 15-20 smokes a day. Many people are very very consistent for years. How does that work for sugar. You can have soda for not soda drinkers. But much added sugar is hidden. How many G of sugar do you eat per day? How many did you eat a month ago? 5 years ago? 10 yeas ago? Have you managed to eat the same G of added sugar over a long time?
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  You aren't going to. Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that such a relationship does exist in the first place, the feasibility of producing a compelling study that compares the health of people who consume added sugar to people who don't would be basically impossible. It's difficult in the extreme to avoid added sugar. So much so that people who do manage to do so are simply not going to be comparable to the rest of the population. Not even remotely. What you could do is an observational study that looks at overall sugar consumption and looks for some sort of correlation with the magnitude. But countless studies like that have already been done, so one must assume that they aren't providing the kind of results that you're looking for.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  > I'm waiting for similar conclusions to surface for added sugar. Haven't they? I saw "sugar coated" several years ago ( http://sugarcoateddoc.com/ http://sugarcoateddoc.com/ ). Not on Netflix any longer, but can still be found on Kanopy I believe. Also, one of the main doctors has videos on Youtube about added sugar and fructose ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM ).
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
hackeraccount 8y ago
The weird thing about smoking rates in the U.S. is that it topped out in 1960. https://www.nap.edu/read/11795/chapter/4#42 https://www.nap.edu/read/11795/chapter/4#42 Why then? People were saying that smoking was bad for you ever since it was brought to Europe. From 1900 to 1959 everyone went - Eh, who cares what they say I want a drag and then in 1960 there was some class of people who it seems reasonable to say would have but for something bought a pack of smokes decided not to.

30 points by apsec112 8y ago

The story (possibly apocryphal) in my family goes like this: My grandfather who smoked regularly was driving when he heard the first reporting on radio about these findings. He threw his pack out the window (anti-littering didn't take hold til the 80s) and never smoked again.

wil421 8y ago
My Grandfather did a similar thing. Small town doctor all his adult like and lived a very heathy life. Smoked up until the day he realized it was very bad and never looked back. Too bad my grandmother couldn’t kick the habit.
orblivion 8y ago
> anti-littering didn't take hold til the 80s That's kind of amazing to think. Did it seriously not occur to people that litter just doesn't look nice? Did people not think about cleaning up their rooms either?
- aklemm 8y ago
  It was weird, and I think about it a lot. In wide open America, it must not have seemed like it would be much of a nuisance. The campaign in the 80s to end littering was really memorable, and it really worked.
- esotericn 8y ago
  It's hard to explain. I guess we thought that the world was infinite. You just had the idea that, well, it'd blow away in the wind, and that would be that. It's obvious now that this isn't the case. Much like, I imagine, smoking was obviously fine, until it wasn't.

markmm 8y ago

TL:DR Smoking kills

smartbit 8y ago

During the decade 1950-1960, at various dates, statements based upon the accumulated evidence were issued by a number of organizations.... The consensus, publicly declared, was that smoking is an important health hazard, particularly with respect to lung cancer and cardiovascular disease. page 6

leoh 8y ago

I wonder -- if this report had come out today, would as many people have believed it? Would huge numbers of people question it much like people question global warming?

baron_harkonnen 8y ago
Even at the time there were articles in Nature protesting this just like people do global warming today: >THE curious associations with lung cancer found in relation to smoking habits do not, in the minds of some of us, lend themselves easily to the simple conclusion that the products of combustion reaching the surface of the bronchus induce, though after a long interval, the development of a cancer. This is the first sentence of the abstract "Cancer and Smoking" published in Nature in 1958, by the father of modern frequentist statistics: Ronald A. Fisher. Fisher published a fair bit on why claims that smoking caused cancer were preposterous arguing that "correlation does not equal causation". Fisher was already a very well respected figure in the statistics community and, despite being a paid researcher for tobacco companies, biographers suggest that his motives were person, he loved smoking and disliked puritanical views on how people should live. So despite being one of the greatest statisticians of all time, Fisher still failed to properly assess the risks of cigarette smoking and cancer.
- hapless 8y ago
  Fisher's later work on smoking was funded by the tobacco industry. He was paid not to properly assess anything. (Not to mention, Mr. Fisher enjoyed tobacco himself.)
mikeash 8y ago
Many people did not believe it. And, just like with global warming, a lot of that was a concerted propaganda effort from the industries who stood to lose the most of people did believe.

m3nu 8y ago

> In comparison with non-smokers, average male smokers of cigarettes have approximately a 9- to 10-fold risk of developing lung cancer and heavy smokers at least a 2O-fold risk. I'm waiting for similar conclusions to surface for added sugar.

brianwawok 8y ago
I think its harder to maths out. It's pretty easy to separate people into three groups of smokers. 0 smoking, 5-10 smokes a day, 15-20 smokes a day. Many people are very very consistent for years. How does that work for sugar. You can have soda for not soda drinkers. But much added sugar is hidden. How many G of sugar do you eat per day? How many did you eat a month ago? 5 years ago? 10 yeas ago? Have you managed to eat the same G of added sugar over a long time?
bunderbunder 8y ago
You aren't going to. Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that such a relationship does exist in the first place, the feasibility of producing a compelling study that compares the health of people who consume added sugar to people who don't would be basically impossible. It's difficult in the extreme to avoid added sugar. So much so that people who do manage to do so are simply not going to be comparable to the rest of the population. Not even remotely. What you could do is an observational study that looks at overall sugar consumption and looks for some sort of correlation with the magnitude. But countless studies like that have already been done, so one must assume that they aren't providing the kind of results that you're looking for.
mixmastamyk 8y ago
> I'm waiting for similar conclusions to surface for added sugar. Haven't they? I saw "sugar coated" several years ago ( http://sugarcoateddoc.com/ http://sugarcoateddoc.com/ ). Not on Netflix any longer, but can still be found on Kanopy I believe. Also, one of the main doctors has videos on Youtube about added sugar and fructose ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM ).

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

hackeraccount 8y ago

The weird thing about smoking rates in the U.S. is that it topped out in 1960. https://www.nap.edu/read/11795/chapter/4#42 https://www.nap.edu/read/11795/chapter/4#42 Why then? People were saying that smoking was bad for you ever since it was brought to Europe. From 1900 to 1959 everyone went - Eh, who cares what they say I want a drag and then in 1960 there was some class of people who it seems reasonable to say would have but for something bought a pack of smokes decided not to.