4 ms·

It depends on the person, I got a nan, 96, walks to town 3 times a week, still rides her bike, been smoking 60 a day for 40 years, and recently cut back to 40.

by ukgent2 15y ago

It depends on the person, I got a nan, 96, walks to town 3 times a week, still rides her bike, been smoking 60 a day for 40 years, and recently cut back to 40. If i compare her to my other nan 86 frail and pretty much falling apart, now guess which one has had the better lifestyle? the second, very well off always comfortable. At 96 i think she gets up to keep smoking, and if that keeps her alive then keep doing it.

isamuel 15y ago
This is like saying the dangerousness of Russian roulette "depends on the person," because you have a grandmother who's played a bunch of times and didn't die.
- nsxwolf 15y ago
  That's probably not correct. The grandmother playing Russian Roulette is truly the beneficiary of random chance. She's still susceptible to bullets. The centenarian smoker likely was never susceptible to smoking-induced lung cancer in the first place.
  - mortenjorck 15y ago
    The hammer is cocked when your embryo is conceived, and you can find out if the chamber was empty a few decades later.
xer0 15y ago
Unfortunately you have to live your whole life to discover whether you're an exception or a statistic. I'll go with the statistics for my personal choices.
- nsxwolf 15y ago
  But most smokers will be exceptions. Most smokers will not get cancer. They get cancer significantly more often than non-smokers, but that's not scary sounding enough, I guess.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    To give specific numbers, according to one study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7895211 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7895211), the lifetime risk of developing lung cancer is: male smokers: 17% female smokers: 12% nonsmokers: 1%
    - nsxwolf 15y ago
      Which backs up what I said. It's really unusual to see anyone talk about the actual lifetime risk. It's not as scary as saying "your chances are X times greater"... greater than what? If those numbers are accurate, and entirely due to the effects of smoking (not just other lifestyle behaviors more common with smokers, like drinking) that's easily reason enough to quit. But even in the worst case, the fact remains, most smokers will not get cancer.
      - xer0 15y ago
        I'm not sure where your argument leads. Are you justifying smoking as a choice, based on the numbers? Are you attempting to explain why people choose to smoke, based on the likelihood of cancer? Something else? Regardless, smoking increases your overall risk pressure along with all of the other risky choices you can make. It's cumulative with the rest of life's choices.
      - lincolnq 15y ago
        "X times greater risk" refers to the likelihood ratio over the Bayesian prior, assuming that this bit of evidence (smoking/not) is independent of other known evidence. Usually the prior is "all people" or "people of <X> ethnotype" or something like that. You can compute the lifetime risk if you have a prior for the lifetime risk of lung cancer (1% in above example), just by multiplying.
    - absconditus 15y ago
      What about heart disease?
  - absconditus 15y ago
vijayr 15y ago
60 a day, at 96 years old???!! wow, that is unbelievable

by ukgent2 15y ago

isamuel 15y ago

This is like saying the dangerousness of Russian roulette "depends on the person," because you have a grandmother who's played a bunch of times and didn't die.

nsxwolf 15y ago
That's probably not correct. The grandmother playing Russian Roulette is truly the beneficiary of random chance. She's still susceptible to bullets. The centenarian smoker likely was never susceptible to smoking-induced lung cancer in the first place.
- mortenjorck 15y ago
  The hammer is cocked when your embryo is conceived, and you can find out if the chamber was empty a few decades later.

xer0 15y ago

Unfortunately you have to live your whole life to discover whether you're an exception or a statistic. I'll go with the statistics for my personal choices.

nsxwolf 15y ago
But most smokers will be exceptions. Most smokers will not get cancer. They get cancer significantly more often than non-smokers, but that's not scary sounding enough, I guess.
- _delirium 15y ago
  To give specific numbers, according to one study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7895211 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7895211), the lifetime risk of developing lung cancer is: male smokers: 17% female smokers: 12% nonsmokers: 1%
  - nsxwolf 15y ago
    Which backs up what I said. It's really unusual to see anyone talk about the actual lifetime risk. It's not as scary as saying "your chances are X times greater"... greater than what? If those numbers are accurate, and entirely due to the effects of smoking (not just other lifestyle behaviors more common with smokers, like drinking) that's easily reason enough to quit. But even in the worst case, the fact remains, most smokers will not get cancer.
    - xer0 15y ago
      I'm not sure where your argument leads. Are you justifying smoking as a choice, based on the numbers? Are you attempting to explain why people choose to smoke, based on the likelihood of cancer? Something else? Regardless, smoking increases your overall risk pressure along with all of the other risky choices you can make. It's cumulative with the rest of life's choices.
    - lincolnq 15y ago
      "X times greater risk" refers to the likelihood ratio over the Bayesian prior, assuming that this bit of evidence (smoking/not) is independent of other known evidence. Usually the prior is "all people" or "people of <X> ethnotype" or something like that. You can compute the lifetime risk if you have a prior for the lifetime risk of lung cancer (1% in above example), just by multiplying.
  - absconditus 15y ago
    What about heart disease?
- absconditus 15y ago

vijayr 15y ago

60 a day, at 96 years old???!! wow, that is unbelievable