Cigarettes Rob Smokers of 10 Years of Life

[PfcHammer]

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=5483593

Cigarettes Rob Smokers of 10 Years of Life
Tue Jun 22, 2004 11:16 AM ET
By Patricia Reaney

LONDON (Reuters) - Cigarette smokers die on average 10 years earlier than non-smokers but kicking the habit, even at 50 years old, can halve the risk, according to half a century of research reported on Tuesday.

Findings from a 50-year study into the dangers of smoking showed that if people quit by the age of 30 they can avoid nearly all of the risk of dying prematurely.

"Cigarette smoking reduces the expectation of life by 10 years," said 91-year-old Oxford University Professor Richard Doll who discovered the link between cancer and smoking.

"It is clear that consistent cigarette smoking doubles mortality throughout adult life -- middle and old age. It is also clear that giving up smoking can eliminate a very large part of the hazard," he told Reuters.

[tandot]

1. I quit about 10 years ago

and feel much better ever since.

But it is one of the most addictive substances. A habit very hard to kick.

[ClintonTyree]

2. Those are...................

the worst ten years of your life anyway. Screw it, if I want to cut ten years off my life sentence here on Earth why should anyone care? It's my life and I'm more than a little sick of people telling me how I should live it. I'm a smoker, get over it.

[Warpy]

4. It doesn't work like that

Those last ten years are going to be even more miserable, since smoking is the largest preventable cause of both pulmonary and cardiac disease. You will struggle for every breath you take for those last years, and there may be 20 of them.

I know, I watched my mother die that way.

However, it's your choice, as long as you set fire to that thing downwind. You don't get to take me with you.

[wabeewoman]

5. Well they are if you smoke...

My mom died from smoking 50 years. And you are right. The last 10 were miserable as she struggled to catch her breath with decreasing success. I can still hear her saying, "help me breathe"... She knew it was from smoking and she quit cold turkey when she starting having trouble breathing but the damage was done. You couldn't tell her anything in the years prior either-I nagged and nagged and pretty much got the same reaction as you had. Maybe you'll be "lucky" and a quick smoking related illness like a heart attack will get you.

[Sandpiper]

7. Not to be unkind

But not smoking doesn't prevent death. It only decreases the possibility of certain types of death.

[progressivebydesign]

40. Worst 10 years of your life?

Wow.. my father died at 54 from smoking. I'd say 54 was damn young. My brother had his first heart attack at 44, from smoking. My aunt died a horrible, painful death of lung cancer, and she was barely 60. My other aunt had her first heart attack at age 45, from smoking. I'd say mid-40's to late 50's would NOT be the worst years of your life. It's an average, they are using an average to come up with 10 years. For many people it's 30 years, and some live to be elderly smokers. My husband's ex MIL is dying from emphysema and now lung cancer.. she has been ill for 20 years.. Sounds like fun to you? Umm.. okay. Puff away.

[lolly]

66. You're right, of course

It IS your right to smoke. I don't care if you do or not.

I can tell you that those "last 10 years" look a little different to a woman whose 1st grandchild is 6 months old when she finds out she won't live to see the baby's first birthday. And no, I'm not over that. I never will be, and neither will the grandchildren who never got to know her.

[Bonhomme Richard]

3. How many years would stress take....................

off my life if I quit smoking. Geez, I'd have to take up serious drinking again (and I'm too old for that) or wanton sex (never too old for that) to get any relief.

[Sandpiper]

6. Yeah but the 10 years you're losing

Are the dentures and depends years.

[Alpharetta]

8. no, the dentures come 10+ yrs early for smokers

take a look at the ADA statistics. Smokers have a MUCH higher rate of tooth loss.

As for the Depends, I imagine those will come earlier too. Heart ailments often result in brain damage and incontinence.

[Sandpiper]

12. I'm not a smoker myself

But what is the upside of living to an age where you can't even make it to the toilet without assistance?

For instance, my grandmother is 84 years old, and crippled with arthritis. She can only walk on level ground, and that only with the assitance of a walker. She never smoked a day in her life, but lives every day in pain.

[Alpharetta]

13. Things get that bad 10 yrs earlier for smokers

It's not taking the worst 10 yrs off your life, it's taking the worst 10 yrs of your life and making them happen 10 yrs earlier.

[Bridget Burke]

11. In the last few years, I've seen 2 friends not make it to 60.....

Because of lung cancer. They were both good guys & were pretty far from dentures & depends.

[progressivebydesign]

41. My father died at 54 from smoking... what's your point? N/T

[frankly_fedup2]

9. I think you should know the truth about how you will probably

die.

ANYONE, anyone who has smoked for a long period of time (i.e. 10+) maybe even less, has damaged the lungs. No, the lungs do not "cure" themselves and make the scars away. Your lungs are already damaged and will remain that way until the day you die.

Now by quitting smoking, you have lowered your chances for a heart attack, stroke, and ventricular disease but the key word is "lowered" not 100% prevented having a heart attack, stroke, ventricular disease, etc. That is a plus; however, you will die of Congestive Heart Failure if cancer, AIDS, or an accident doesn't kill you first.

Ask your doctor if you don't believe me. Of course, a doctor will never commit to a question. This is the way doc's talk . . . "suggestive of, could possibly happen, may be a problem, could hurt you, might hurt you" . . . see my point there.

How do I know this? Well, I use to work in a hospital in Medical Records transcription. Ohhhh, how could I know such things then, right. I'm not a nurse, I'm not a doctor, I was just a transcriptionist. Let me educate you. WHATEVER you confide in your doctor, he dictates to us, and we transcribe the report and place it on your private chart. Of course, we sign a confidentiality agreement regarding patient records . . . BUT, I, personally, have seen this breached by others. I reported them when I knew of them. However, the doctors' themselves were the worst about discussing patients in the dictation rooms with other doctors, in dictating rooms when someone comes up to talk to them, they hold down the yolk on the dictation phone and keep on talking. I have learned more about doctors then I care to. Also, they gossip to each other about patients as well.

I have had doctors tell me that they gave me permission to sign their names at the end of the reports (transcription) I've done for them so they would not have to fool with it. That's illegal and they would say it was okay with them. When I told them I could get fired, then they would say they would do what they are suppose to do. This includes birth certificates before they were sent to vital records.

Well, I've gotten off course here. My point is as above, if you have ever smoked for a long period of time, you will have congestive heart failure that will either cause your death or be a part of it. Sorry for the bad news.

The antismoking lobby (insurance companies) would have you believing otherwise; however, they are no better than the tobacco lobby, they do not tell the whole truth either.

[TexasBushwhacker]

32. They are a lot better than the tobacco lobby

because they are encouraging you to do something that is BETTER FOR YOUR HEALTH. Today's cigarettes are 90% tobacco and 10% "other" by weight and all of that "other" isn't the filter and paper. There's a list of hundreds of additives that the tobacco companies use to make tobacco taste better (including chocolate to make it appeal to "younger palates"), make it easier to inhale (broncho-dilators) and increase the nicotine kick, thus making it more addictive.

The thing about smoking is that you really never know when it's going to catch up with you. Sure, you may live into your 60's or 70's or beyond and suffer few ill effects, or you could be like Eddie Van Halen and have throat and tongue cancer when you're 45. I had 2 friends die of smoking related cancers in 2001. One had throat cancer the other had lung cancer. They were both 49.

You never know who you're going to hurt with your second hand smoke either. A friend's mother in law died of lung cancer last year caused by her husband's second hand smoke. She never smoked a day in her life.

[frankly_fedup2]

72. Well I learned something new today (thanks)

I did not realize that the other included "chocolate." Everything seems clearer to me now.

Your right, anyone who smokes is playing a type of Russian Roulette. However, so are people who drink excessively but they do not feel the type of "wrath" that a smoker does.

I have watched several members of my family drink themselves to death. They swelled up (because of their liver) as well as turning jaundiced colored, had lost total control of their bladder, and continued to drink. I'm sure they drove as well.

Luckily, none of them ever killed other people, but there are thousands of people a year that are killed by drunk drivers as compared to second-hand smoke. The people who die from second-hand smoke had a choice just like those alcoholics that got behind the wheel and killed others and 9 times out of 10, unfortunately, do not kill themselves.

I feel tobacco is just as addictive as alcohol; however, my insurance company will not pay for me to go into a type of detox to get off the cigs. If I abused alcohol, I would be admitted in a heartbeat for a 6-week detox.

The insurance companies should treat tobacco addicts the same way they do alcoholics. Want to know why they will never do that . . . because someone somewhere decided alcoholism is a disease, but someone addicted is not a disease. In the long run, if they would help smokers and give them a week in rehab, the tobacco companies would go out of business. Well, that business. A lot of the tobacco companies also own like "Betty Crocker," and other big food companies. (don't quote me on Betty Crocker. That's the only one I could think of.)

(stepping off soapbox now).

[TexasBushwhacker]

77. Yum yum!

"Blended tobacco, water, high fructose corn syrup, glycerol, propylene glycol, sucrose, invert sugar, casing flavor, natural and artificial licorice flavor, menthol, artificial milk chocolate, natural chocolate flavor, artificial tobacco flavors, valerian root extract, molasses extract, vanilla extract, vanillin, isovaleric acid, cedarwood oil, phenylacetic acid, patchouli oil, hexanoic acid, vetiver oil, olibanum oil, 3-methylpentanoic acid, denatured ethanol"
Cigarette ingredients listed by L&M. The New York Times, December 28, 1997."

Propylene glycol aka ANTI-FREEZE!!!! Some speculate that the additives in tobacco are responsible for FIFTY PERCENT of the deaths. So if you have to smoke, smoke American Spirits which are additive free.

Don't EVEN get me started on alcohol. I am the granddaughter, daughter and sister of alcoholics. In alcohols defense, most people can drink moderate amounts safely, and by moderate I mean no more than 2 drinks a day for men and 1 drink a day for women. But I don't tempt fate. I drink very rarely and then only one.

[frankly_fedup2]

83. What happened to the fomaldihyde?

I thought the same stuff that they put the pig embryos in for our biology classes as well as being used for embalming was in cigarettes too?

The "American Spirits" I have never heard of them?? Are they for real???

I know what you mean about the alcohol. I have never really taken to the feeling of not being in total control of myself so I guess that is why I don't care to drink not even one drink. I'm married to a functioning alcoholic whose 2 remaining brothers (His younger brother died of AIDS in April but he never was much of a drinker . . . even before he was infected), are alcoholics, their father was an alcoholic, my father was an alcoholic, my fathers' brothers and sisters, his father but not his mother. I cannot really think of only 1 or 2 of my cousins (out of 36) really being any type of a heavy drinker. It's like it skipped a generation. Of course, my son has drank socially (even when experimenting during those teen years), but now that he is married and has a son (my son is 25 and my grandson just turned 1), he could care less about it.

When my daughter-in-law became pregnant, both she and my son quit smoking and have not gone back to it. I am so proud of them. They have really made me and their dad look like such losers. Let alone saving around $200 a month. They are such great parents to my grandson. I was really worried because they are so immature with everything else;however, when it comes to that baby, they just are able to take care of anything that comes up. My grandson was born with an cleft palate and lip. It was a shock to all of us, but my son and daughter-in-law didn't cry once. This past year my little grandson has been through so many surgeries. It is remarkable as to what he looks like now. You would never know he was ever born with a birth defect. It's amazing.

There I go again . . . the grandma part of me kicking in and rambling on. Sorry everyone.

[TexasBushwhacker]

84. American Spirits

Here's the website for American Spirit cigarettes:

http://www.nascigs.com/

They've cut way back on the use of formaldehyde in all applications since they found out it's carcinogenic. Of course I practically bathed in it when I was a biology major 30 years ago. But the list of additives I showed you was just for one brand of cigarettes. Different brands and types have different additives.

Here's a page about the research they're doing on smoking, quitting and smoking related cancers at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Check out the article (you'll have to click "more") called "Smoking Cessation Goes High Tech". It was an interesting study that they did in 2000 and I remember that many people who'd never been successful "quitters" before were able to with this program.

http://www.mdanderson.org/topics/smoking/

That's great about your son and daughter-in-law. You can do all the preparation in the world, but you don't really know what you can handle until you have to handle it. Some people that are normally forgetful or irresponsible get really focused when handling a crisis (I'm one of those). Some people that are high achieving, very responsible types fall apart emotionally when dealing with crisis. You just never know. I'm glad your kids rose to the challenge.

[onehandle]

10. Or more...

I knew a woman who's family typically lived well into their 90's.

She died at 38 of lung cancer.

[TahitiNut]

16. Or less ....

Welcome to the "magic" of arithmetic ... and the notion of averages. :eyes:


So, one woman died fifty years earlier so five others didn't lose 10 years at all. Think of it as a "service." :silly:

When Bill Gates visits me, my "average income" doesn't go up by billions, no matter how many other guests I have. Comprende?

[Malva Zebrina]

19. Not to be contrary but I knew two people who lived

one to be in his late nineties who smoked well past the age of seventy, and another who lived to be over a hundred who smoked well into her seventies.

Cosider also, what they smoked--Camels or Lucky Strike

-no filter cigarettes.


Also know of one relative who never smoked and developed lung cancer.

[Alpharetta]

20. the "seat belt" argument

for a long time, seat belt laws were fought with the argument "some folks without belts survive wrecks"

[Malva Zebrina]

22. I know that, but still those are facts.

that we cannot deny. Can you deny that?

In the end, each person makes the decision for him/herself.


The way it has turned today re smokers , is against the smoker as a nifty little PR connection to the smoker as a sort of "homeless bum" that is dirty and further wants to cause harm to those around him'her and that, imo, is unfortunate. The smoker today is akin to a "sinner" in the minds of the fundamentalist Christian.

However, should we imply that obesity is just as akin to filth and the sinner as the smoker is, we are jumped on as being politically incorrect, even though obesity carries with it as much risk as smoking does. Perhaps even more.

[jpgray]

35. Anecdotal evidence isn't very convincing (nt)

[Malva Zebrina]

54. true,but it is convincing to the one who experiences it personally

and knows it to be fact because they have lived it.

[Alpharetta]

14. Brits should be glad their taxes don't subsidize tobacco farmers

At least British lawmakers are not THAT owned by the tobacco industry...

[TahitiNut]

15. That's the same as being single instead of married.

Actuarial statistics give married folks 10 years greater life expectancy. Does that mean divorce should be illegal? :eyes:

[Retired AF Dem]

17. Can that really be true?

Why do husbands normally die first? Because they want to. :)

[TahitiNut]

18. ... because OSHA doesn't monitor husbandry?

:silly:

[Karenina]

29. Yeah, I smoke

and even moreso when I'm stressed out. LIKE NOW!!! It's a bit more socially acceptable than sucking one's thumb. :silly: MEN live longer if married. Anyone remember the Southern centagenarian sisters asked about the secret of their longevity? "Well, we never married..."

Oh well, BLEW THAT. Had only MALE children... They are "grown," needy and as I have no mate, sometimes I need to "suck my thumb" for comfort. Don't get it anywhere else.

Ms. Goldstein, my 80 Y.O. black-clad Piano 1 instructor smoked 3 packs of unfiltered Camels a day. She ALSO carried a ruler that would strike you sharply on your butt if you didn't keep your spine erect or across the knuckles if your hand position was off. In a nanasecond. OUCH!!!!

Da Boyz were the epitome of "healthy living" and got taken out on the Autobahn.

What the fuckin' hey? NO ONE gets outta here ALIVE. And with the current misanthropistration, even all y'all who done "everthin right" STILL be in the crosshairs. ;-) Gotta light?

[TahitiNut]

30. Hey ..."smoke 'em if ya got 'em!"

... whitefish if you don't like tobacco (or weed). :silly:

[TahitiNut]

80. Both men and women live longer ... even if gay. (Read this.)

From "Get Married for Life" By James Hughes ...

For me, even as a happily married husband and father, if increased life expectancy requires joining the religious right in a celebration of the heterosexual family, I'd prefer castration. That's not what I'm arguing. As I said, there is no evidence that gay marriage or polygamy confers any less of a health benefit than heterosexual marriage. Not only should we legalize gay marriage, polygamy and child-rearing and cohabitation contracts on moral grounds, but they would also increase the percent of the population enjoying the benefits of legally committed companion humans.

In fact, since the health benefits for women who marry men are controversial, we should probably only be encouraging gay marriage. Because of the fertility-longevity link, we should be discouraging reproduction altogether.

http://www.betterhumans.com/Features/Columns/Change_Surfing/column.aspx?articleID=2004-01-08-2

:-) :-)

[phillybri]

21. Denis Leary: "It's the 10 worst years, the ones at the end!"

Sorry...

[noonwitch]

25. My sister's mother in law's reason for smoking

Alzheimer's runs in her family and she is afraid of getting it, so she figures she'll die of lung cancer first. Wouldn't it be funny if she was one of the small percentage of smokers who don't get cancer or emphysema?

[CaptainClark23]

23. "Robs" me of 10 years?

Bullshit. I smoke and know damn well what the risks and implications are. If I had no clue of these, then I'd be robbed.

As it stands, its a concious act. No one is making me light up.

A semantic argument, and ultimately pointless, but there you are....

[Sandpiper]

70. My other grandmother gave up smoking at 58

After she suffered a mild heart attack.

Thank goodness she did. If she hadn't, she might not have lived to experience the Senile Dementia that set in in her early 70's.

Glad she quit before she got "robbed" of the 10 years where her body would outlive her upper cerebral functions.

[olddem43]

24. Cigarette smokers are simply victims of the Tobacco industry -

I know of no other product, widely and easily available, that when used as intended, causes so much suffering and death. The major problem with cigarettes is that they don't work fast enough. I guess smokers are just waiting to shake hands with Marion Morrison.

[TahitiNut]

31. ETOH

:shrug:

[Kukesa]

34. Glad you pointed that out, TahitiNut.

Alcohol, which is a legal drug, causes death. Alcoholism is a treatable illness in most cases -- however the type and length of treatment needed depends on the length of addiction, emotional difficulties, attitudes of family, friends, etc.

Today I'm celebrating my 23rd year of A. A. and sober living. Yep, I've been to hell and back. ("Back" is better, much better.)

[TahitiNut]

39. Alcohol is probably single-handedly responsible for lowering IQ in the US

... by at least 10 pts. Most folks just don't have the 10 pts to spare. Some people feel 'stupid' is fun. I did. (Drinking 'champion' in college; daily drinker for 15 years.) Then I learned how to be stupid while sober - but not serious. I'm watching people age and lose short-term memory, equilibrium, and other MRI-detectible brain-damage-related maladies. I'll take pot over alcohol any day.

"Falling-down drunk" is just "falling-down" after a lifetime of drinking.

[Malva Zebrina]

33. I do--

Food,and feeding way too much food to our children making them fat little bubbling blobs of fat, thereby increasing their risk of diabetes and it's complications. These complications from overconsumption, or addiction, to food, can occur in the early thirties and can also affect a fetus shoujld the mother be afflicted with diabetes.

Take a look around you and notice how many fat people are bouncing around the supermarket buying up their fix for the day or for the week.

[Carolina]

26. take a puff of a cigarette

and you inhale over 400 compounds many of them known to cause cancer while others are toxic, or at least damaging, to specialized cells. Over time, you increase your risk for heart attack, stroke, peripheral vascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (bronchitis and emphysema), exacerbate bone loss and peptic ulcer disease.

Smoking is not only related to cancers of the oral cavity, larynx (throat) and lungs but the metabolites of all those wonderful compounds up the risk for cancers of the esophagus, pancreas, kidneys and urinary bladder. Stopping smoking before permanent damage (i.e. emphysema which = permanent destruction of alveoli or air sacs) does lessen your risks for these deadly and certainly quality of life reducing disorders.

So keep smoking, snorting, chewing or snuffing if that's your pleasure. I'll see you or someone like you on my autopsy table. But don't liken those of us who fight the good fight against the tobacco industry to religious fundies, as one poster above did. Tobacco in its varied forms is an addictive (thanks to nicotine), deadly product marketed solely for profit. And many of those profits are often peddled into GOP campaign coffers.

Funny the the repuke justification for peddling tobacco products to third world countries was that by shortening lifespan, healthcare costs can be reduced. What an argument. So if you think that by smoking, you're cutting out your dentures and depends years. Fine. But think again because you're actually, adversely impacting your quality of life right now.

Finally a word about filters. Filtered cigarettes are nothing more than slick deception. Yes, some percentage of compounds may be trapped by the filter but not significantly enough to make a difference for the smoker over time. Moreover, what is released into the environment as secondhand smoke from filtered or unfiltered cigs is truly deadly for us all.

The article is correct. Go to VA Hospitals and see the real truth. Read all the surgeon generals' reports not just the warning labels on the packs of cigarettes. Read the background material e.g. Brown and Williamson about the marketing practices ... makes those Enron guys seem small. Remember or recall one simple fact: the very first time you smoked a cigarette, what was your first response? Be honest. Most likely, you coughed. Your body was telling you something, heed it.


Carolina, M.D. Pathologist

[ElectroPrincess]

27. I know but Quality of Life also matters

My father is 84 in the final stages of Alzheimer's with a little Parkinson's on the side. Excuse my glib attitude but I think you get the picture? :(

Perhaps smoking 3-5 cigarettes per day (really) will give me the big C (Cancer) before my 80s. However, if not, I'd be happy to cash in my final ten years on the relaxing effect of an occasional smoke. Think about it? Those final ten years won't mean squat, i.e., spent "drooling all over myself" and "losing my way on a trip to the bathroom."

Nah, as long as I don't go over five, the rest of the "no smoking" crusaders can kiss my butt! <blush> And yeah, I smoke outside so I don't kill the rest of my family. LOL

[Carolina]

50. it is your choice

and I am glad to hear that you smoke outside away from your family, especially any young children, since environmental smoke can cause or exacerbate airway disease like asthma which is far to prevalent in children now.

Most of us "No Smoking" crusaders don't give a rip what people do to their own bodies. Even as a doctor, I really don't care what people choose. I see people do all kinds of unhealthy things and accept it as their personal choice. Hell, I'm far from perfect (drive to fast, sometimes veg on the couch with a whole bag of CHEESE popcorn ...)But unlike obesity, for example, secondhand smoke in public places can affect me and mine infringes on others' choice.

My real anger is toward the tobacco industry and its lies and hypocrisy. As an aside, Mr. Morals -- Ken Starr -- was a shill lawyer for the tobacco industry and when the tobacco giants went before Congress and lied about titrating tobacco levels to ensure addiction and therefore consumers (and therefore profits), he didn't pursue them for lying under oath. Just think your cigarette money helps people like him.

But anyway, it really is your choice and I am not saying that smugly. Nicotine is highly addictive and as I try to tell my med students who are often so condemnatory about illicit drugs, the common denominator, whether legal or illegal, is that drugs make people feel good. Cigarettes relieve stress and can produce a sense of well-being. Cocaine and heroin also can produce a sense of well being. And cigarettes kill over 400,000 people annually which is a figure that dwarfs deaths from all the illicit drugs. But look at how society views illicit drug sellers and users and what we do to them?! I always tell them you cannot incarcerate away addiction. It gets them thinking.

[ElectroPrincess]

57. OK, now I've heard it all for the ump-teenth time, " leave me be"

And I am glad *in the real world* that I'm not among folks who love to preach morality and control OTHER peoples' behavior. Kindly consider working on yourself and family instead of hyper-focusing on us evvvvviil smokers? Please! Let's all remember our Bible verses especially the one that states, "He who is without sin ....

BTW tell me what is your particular vice? Are you overweight, drink too much coffee, have carb cravings that you can't dismiss, hyper-sexual and must have multiple partners? What is your SIN ... VICE? Yes, What's up with YOU that I can counsel ad nausea toward more considerate, moral and healthy behavior until you kick my behind out of your house?

EVERYONE has some profound vice that they enjoy but not 100% proud of having in their behavioral repertoire.

Gee, right now I'm so pissed at being "preached to" I'm going out on the porch and lighting-up right now. <tweak and tease> ROTFLMAO

[Carolina]

62. did you really read what I wrote in post #50?

My loathing is toward the tobacco industry. Lighting up on the porch is your choice.

I have lived around smokers all my life and they haven't listened to me either. C'est la vie. 'Course every last one of my smoking loved ones has either had cancer, heart disease or strokes and many died from such. No smugness here, just a sad fact of life.

As for me, I try my damnedest to live a healthy lifestyle precisely because of what I've seen in hospitals and morgues, of knowing how I don't want to end up. I don't trust many doctors either, despite being one. Quite frankly, I have told my son how to euthanize me, undetectably so he won't be prosecuted like Dr. Kevorkian.:evilgrin:

Kidding aside, I am surely full of faults --- obsessive-compulsive, worst case scenario worrier, full fat ice cream lover, DU addicted (need a 12-step program) ... ;-) Peace

[Lalena]

52. Please check out this article - even 5 cigarettes may hurt

I quit smoking in January after many years (over 30)of smoking. For the last 10 years I just smoked 4 a day. I quit after deciding that there was enough research out there to indicate that even a few cigarettes jeopardized my health. Anyway, check out the article.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2193029.stm

[ElectroPrincess]

59. Good for you, now stop preaching - Or is that part of recovery?

[Malva Zebrina]

36. I am not equating the fight against tobacco with fundies

but the supercilious attitude of the holier than thou who look down upon smokers as some sort of low life people who are bums and dirty bums at that.

It is a choice people make. It is the same choice that people make to eat too much. HOw many people have you seen on your autopsy table that have died from obesity or the complications of.

Do you make the brave fight against obesity on the same level and with the same intensity as the fight against tobacco? Do you point out daily to the numerous fat people that are blobbing along the street eating Krispy Kremes and sipping a coke and force them to do it in private because they are offensive and giving a poor image to young children who may also want a Krispy Kreme even though they have just finished a meal and cannot possibly be hungry

Do you rail against the food merchandisers and rail against their advertising and call obese people a victim of the food industry?

[napi21]

38. I have to agree with the just leave me alone crowd.

My mother died at 91 after having suffered altzheimers, blindness, hearing loss etc. for about 12 years. She never smoked a day in her life and constantly preached against it to EVERYONE! My father smoked for many years, and died at 68 from a bloodclot traced back to an injury from a stone that hit him after being thrown from a rotary lawn mower.

When he died, I said I hoped I would be as fortunate as he someday and never have to suffer.

I'm 60, and smoke. Do I know it will shorten my life? YES. I don't want to live to 90 and have to face all the health problems that go with that! It is my decision and I need you to let me make it for myself!

[progressivebydesign]

44. I'd be fine with leaving smokers like you alone IF..

IF smokers did not band together to force other people to breathe their addiction in public places by fighting indoor smoking laws. If smokers did not rely on any type of public health care to treat their denial-related illnesses. IF they did NOT drive up the cost of my health insurance, by the BILLIONS spent in America on health care for ailing smokers. IF all that was taken care of.. then puff away. I'm sorry for you if you'll suffer at all like the people I"ve seen dying from smoking. Ask anyone who is dying of lung cancer or emphysema or heart problems that can be traced to smoking, ask them if they're sorry they ever picked up a cigarette.

My dad, who had heart problems from smoking, was in a VA hospital for while when I was a kid. I knew I would never become a smoker after I saw the man, a heavy smoker, in the hospital missing most of his face to cancer... If that's what you have to look forward to, and you're good with that, you're a brave soul.

[Malva Zebrina]

47. there ya go--it's those bums who are causing the fat people

to get sick because they are forced to breathe their smoke and for all they know in their denial of their fatness, it is the smokers who caused them to get fat.

People losing their face to cancer need not be due to filthy smokers, either but to overexposure to the rays of the sun and other unknown factors. I knew and took care of a woman who suffered with cancer of the jaw, and lost much of the structure of her face and she did not smoke, neither did her husband. She probably died within five years of the time that I knew her.


It is fat people also, now who are also driving up the cost of health insurance and they are the victims of the food and the sugar industry.
And their denial is that we are picking on them and are politically incorrect. They are beautiful because fat is natural and that they are fat is not their fault. uh huh

So please, carry out the crusade against the fat blobs who wiggle and waggle along stuffing their faces in their own little addiction while accusing smokers of deteriorating their health because they smoke.

[napi21]

49. As far as I know, smokers are banding together to retain

some rights. I'd be happy with a smoking ban that was decided by the individual restaurant owner, just not an across the board "all resturants"! If you as a non-smoker don't want to even enter the front door, that's fine! I have that same option not to go into the non-smoking one.

I smoke in my house. If you don't want to come in here, then that's your choice.

There used to be a "smoking room" where I worked, with it's own ventilation system....yes, separate from the rest of the building! Well, the non-smoking crowd bitched long enough that that's gone now too!

Why is it all or nothing with you?

[Carolina]

58. excellent points, Caliphoto

we all pay for the health care costs of the over 400,000 people who ultimately die of the effects of their addiction annually in the US. That is exactly why several states attorneys general sued the tobacco industry back in 1998 to recoup some of the state Medicare/Medicaid costs of such a deadly product.

Read my post above; I know all too well about VA hospitals. One of the fringe benefits of the Armed Services used to be all the cigarettes a person could want! Do you know any vets who never smoked?

[Carolina]

55. please read my response above to Electro...

I don't look down on smokers. Nicotine is highly addictive. I do, however, loathe the lying, greedy bastards of the tobacco industry and want to hit 'em in the pocketbooks which means giving consumers (i.e. smokers) all the info to make a healthier choice.

That said, you're absolutely right about processed foods. We're seeing more childhood obesity and hence early onset diabetes because of it. The food industry (agribusiness) is the next target for doctors and public health agencies. I long ago changed my own eating an exercise habits because of the preponderance of strokes in my family tree. And I preach ad nauseum to my students, and anyone else who'll listen, about eating habits, types of foods and exercise. But body weight is impacted by assorted variables of which diet and exercise are certainly a part but other factors like genes, thyroid function, drugs (e.g. steroids for autoimmune and other diseases) play a role too.

Not too worry, factory farming, Frankenfoods are on my hit list too!:)

[Carolina]

75. since you claim below

to have 35 years of medical practice, what's your point? Why are you attacking the medical facts about smoking of my post. Truth hurts, hit a sore spot or something, eh? Why are you defending smoking and going off track on another topic for another thread. This thread is about smoking. Wanna talk about obesity which is indeed is becoming a major health issue, start another thread to that effect.

[glitch]

42. Very difficult to quit - but if you know you are supporting the likes of

Brown & Williamson types it gets easier. Plus the tobacco industry contributes heavily GOP. And, I didn't like reeking in polite company. Yep, that simple. Sick of my own stink.
The health arguments didn't effect me so much as the politics and personal hygiene, don't know why. Probably part of the addiction's rationale. Amazing what you can rationalize to get your nic fix.

5 years quit - will not be going back.

[progressivebydesign]

43. You bring up a great point...

One of the greatest ironies is amongst the people I know that smoke. Almost all of them buy bottled water.. rather than drink tap water. They say it's because of "all those CHEMICALS in the tap water". Go figure. I have read that nicotine actually deadens a part of your brain, and that part of your brain is the part that helps you reason about your addiction. It was a fascinating study that showed smoking reduced your ability to acknowledge that, for example, your father was dying of lung cancer in the hospital from smoking, and that it would probably do the same to you. There's a denial that is perpetrated BY the chemicals in the cigarettes. I don't know if this is purposely added to cigarettes, or if it's just an very, very unfortunate by-product of them.

[Sandpiper]

68. From the way you talk

So keep smoking, snorting, chewing or snuffing if that's your pleasure. I'll see you or someone like you on my autopsy table.

You make it sound like only smokers end up on your autopsy table.

Like I've already said, I don't smoke. But my non smoking is going to do absolutely nothing to change the fact that I'm inevitably going to croak.

Ditto for you Doc. Congrats on being tobacco free, and that being said, you're still going to die.

[fortyfeetunder]

28. From experience....

My mom passed away 11 years ago today. She was a smoker, which didn't help her diabetes, high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, and eventually end stage renal disease. She was insistent to the point of being antagonistic about having her right to smoke whenever, whereever she wanted.

My son had an anti-smoking lesson in school recently. The students were asked about smoking habits in the family and discuss it with parents. I told him if Grandma hadn't smoked, she probably would have lived to see him born. And that he will never have to do now what I did as a child, that is, ask mom to stop smoking.

[Malva Zebrina]

37. But there are also people who I know

who have diabetes, kidney disease, athrosclerosis, heart disease, and high blood pressure, who do NOT smoke and never have smoked.

Those things are complications of diabetes the treatment of which is proper diet, and keeping the blood sugar within normal limits.

Most diabetics are overweight and losing weight is one of the tools used to control diabetes. Yet we see a country full of fat people who are most likely candidates for diabetes. Including children now,who are little dumplings and victims also of the food industry in a capitalist lazy country.

[Carolina]

56. sorry Marianne, you're wrong

diabetes is associated with accelerated atherosclerosis of ALL blood vessels (and the nephrons of the kidney are essentially vascular tufts). Smoking accelerates development of vascular disease and exacerbates the vascular disease associated with other conditions. Put smoking and diabetes together, you've got a deadly or devastating double whammy. Also, proper maintenance of blood glucose ameliorates the effects of diabetes but does not entirely eliminate the complications

And yes, there are people who have never smoked who have kidney disease, hypertension, diabetes, you name it, but the bottom line is smoking creates an additive, negative effect. There simply is no positive side of smoking for the consumer. It affects your health negatively when you're in apparent good health and worsens just about every underlying, pre-existing condition a person could possibly have because it interferes with oxygen delivery by generating carbon monoxide and causing blood vessel narrowing. All cells depend on vascular supply and oxygen. PERIOD.

[ElectroPrincess]

60. Hey, would someone please wake me up when class is over?

<I'm teasing!> I'm sorry Carolina but your work is wasted on us hard cases. Forgive me, for at times I have an attention span of a knat. You're an intelligent fellow and I wish you the best.

Time to take a smoke break now.
Bye <hugs and genuine good wishes>

[Carolina]

64. see ya later

Peace :hi:

[Malva Zebrina]

61. OK

"Put smoking and diabetes together, you've got a deadly or devastating double whammy"

NO way. I can cite a diabetic who never smoked and also developed it all without the help of cigarettes and there are plenty of them around, believe me.

The cause of it is Diabetes and not smoking. A diabetic who is overweight is also at risk as the one who smokes. Those who are overweght have as many complications attlributed to their fatness as the smoker.

It has not been proven that smoking cause these things in Diabetics BTW

It is the Diabetes which causes these complications and as I said, obesity is as much a culprit as anything else, if one chooses to finger a culprit.Certainly it is NOT smoking cigarettes that cause Diabetes.

In fact, obesity,or an addiction to food ingestion beyond what is necessary to sustain life, is more a culprit than smoking as we know that obese people will develop Diabetes yet not all smokers will develop Diabetes.

A fat person who does not have Diabetes, but who is fat, is susceptable to many things that would, theoretically shorten their life.

Yet, we see little in the way fo activism, trying to limit the advertising or the persuasiveness of food industries who make their obscene appeals to people who are food addicted and there are a great many of them in this country. and there are, unlike smokers,many who are young children. I am talking about five year old children.

[Carolina]

63. Smoking and diabetets is a deadly

double whammy. I'll take my 24 years of medical practice and education over your cavalier, unfounded NO WAY comment.

Sorry to pull that kind of rank on you, but you are wrong. And if you read my post carefully, you will see that I said diabetes causes accelerated atherosclerosis. And yes, it does this alone but IF you add smoking which also affects blood vessels, you have a double whammy.

Obesity is a growing problem which I have addressed in another post and which is undoubtedly related to agribusiness, processed foods, etc. And yes, it too is causative, accelerative and exacerbative of diabetes.

But you cannot deny (well, you can and have, but you're wrong) that smoking is additive. It exacerbates every underlying, pre-existing, other disease that affects the human body because of its deadly or debilitating effect on blood vessels and oxygen delivery.

[Malva Zebrina]

73. wow, I am impressed with your twenty four years of medical practice

I have thirty five years of medical practice under my belt, but let us just look at the facts instead of pulling rank on each other.

There is something to consider here that goes beyond our hoity toity claims to medical practices, which if anyone spends any amount of time researching knows is totally involved in it's practice with the US corporate structures which dominate our health care system here in the USA

Having said that, take a look at how the American Diabetes Association has conducted itself over the years, bending to corporate America--ie, eating sugar has as much a glycemic impact on blood sugar as a serving of fruit, therefore it is OK to eat sugar and ever notice how Cambell's soup is so so prevalent in the ADA diet exchange system? Why is that ? Why do we see fifty listings of Campbells' soup and virtually no other? Does that not make you wonder?

Now, let us take a look at what the people are saying here. One considers what their life may look like at the age of eighty. That would be the ten year difference noted in the introduction here.


Certainly, it cannot be without problems and indeed in the experience of many, becoming eighty, with all sorts of incontinence, urinary as well as bowel related, and all sorts of neurological deficiencies due to aging, many have decided that wearing the
depends and other such things are NOT how they want to end their lives. They would prefer to smoke cigarettes, indulge in that pleasure, than be stressed and put into that old age humiliation.

So who is to say. Those who do not smoke, still suffer the complications of Diabetes. Those who do smoke face the same thing as those who do not smoke. If they are in the mid seventies, and can, say add ten years to their life that would make them in their mid eighties--many face the fact that at that age they may be, indeed, basket cases, a burden on their family, or the state and at the point where they might lose their home of fifty years in order to be cared for in a home, while the home gets to sell the property and make a great big profit.

Some would rather not--and that, in spite of all your medical training and experience, is something that is NOT up to you, at that point in the game. It is up to NO ONE but the individual who is hiking the path.

And, I maintain, that the emphasis put on the dangers of smoking along with all the disparaging remarks and attitudes is not matched by any emphasis at all on the part of the medical sheeple who are sometimes too joined at the hip with the corporate managers of our so called health care, do NOT address with the same rigor that they address the smokers.

If I am seventy, and I choose to smoke and die five years earlier than the "medical experts" predict, even though those five years are spent in a nursing home that they most likely have an investment in, and avoid the depends and the nursing home and all the humiliation of being put into a home and dying there in isolation, I think that should be my choice. We do have some control over what we do with our lives and if we are old, we have and deserve it more.

[Carolina]

76. so smoke on, if you choose

but you're still mixing apples and oranges. This thread is about smoking. You have consistently gone off on a tangent about obesity and diabetes while dismissing the medical facts about smoking.

The medical facts support everything I stated in my initial post above. Moreover if you really, completely read all that I have written in this thread, you would note that time and again, I TAKE AIM AT THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY.

In many ways, Marianne, we're on the same page about how corporatists are wreaking havoc with the health of Americans. :shrug:

[fortyfeetunder]

79. My point was---

my mom's continued smoking didn't help her other medical conditions.

[The Flaming Red Head]

45. I’m an obnoxious unrepentant smoker

I’m an obnoxious unrepentant smoker and I’m sure I’ll die an awful death and all the self righteous prigs will be gleefully describing my horrible demise to scare all the little children. Puff, puff….


At least they won’t drag it out too much since I have no health insurance and I don’t have to deal with doctors lectures about my health (what health?) and there won’t be a lot of life saving measures on me. I’m not wasting your money anyway. So what’s it to ya?

[ElectroPrincess]

48. I like your attitude there RED :-)

As George Carlin quips, people don't smoke because a camel in sunglasses tells them to ... they smoke because it "eases anxiety and depression."

And gee whiz, if BushCo. gets another four years and these nanny state - save us from ourselves "moralizing vice squad" stays in full flourish, I may need to add a shot of Vodka on the side. LOL

[TO Kid]

46. I guess that means my grandmother

Was robbed- tobacco cut down in her prime at the age 102. Tragic.

[Loonman]

51. Wasn't Hitler a vegetarian non-smoker?

}(

[glitch]

53. When I smoked nagging only made me want another cigarette

And to a smoker, simply informing them of the effects of smoking is nagging. We all know what the effects are.

Folks'll quit when they're ready, or not. It's not as hard as it used to be now that they have patches. Still hard, but not impossible.

Worth it, "the only thing cooler than a smoker is an ex-smoker" - Bill Mahr.

[Carolina]

65. my ex-smoker husband

is worse than any moralizing never-smoker like me. Much as I hate smoking (actually breathing other peoples' secondhand smoke), I'm more tolerant than all my posts above would suggest. :evilgrin:

My 17-pack-year husband, however, is a real piece of work around smokers now. Talk about ranting, raving, preaching and moralizing ...

Anyway, peace all. Let's get back to bashing Bush ... something I think we can all agree on.

[ElectroPrincess]

69. Oops! <blush> A correction

Sorry Carolina, I assumed you were male.

Let me restate, "You're a very intelligent women. + I know your heart is in the right place."

I love to challenge authority but I will try harder to make a complete break with smoking. Not for me, but for my Daughter.

Thank you :-)

[NashVegas]

67. Is That All? Damn, I'm Gonna Have to Smoke More

..

[sam sarrha]

71. Tobacco saves the nation a lot of SSI and pension payments..

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

74. I'd like to buy the Bush Administration a pack of Lucky Strikes

and a three pounds of red meat.

[mike1963]

78. Gosh, I first heard this LBN in 1950.

:eyes:

[FemaleDemfromMass]

81. I smoked two packs

a day until two years ago, when I found out I had the beginning of COPD. The nurse at the hospital told me if I didn't quit right away,
I'd be carrying around an oyxgen tank. I quit the next day. I wouldn't have quit otherwise, I really enjoyed smoking. Two years later I still crave cigarettes and keep having dreams that I am smoking. lol

I do not preach to anyone who smokes, why, because I absolutely hated it when people preached to me. It really wouldn't take much for me to start again, but so far I haven't. It really is an awful addiction and I think the cravings will always be with me, but as long as I only smoke in my dreams, that's okay. :)

[psychopomp]

86. The cravings will go, too

I smoked ten years and quit almost six years ago. I have zero desire to light up...unless it's a joint. I hope that the pot doesn't wreck my lungs any more because shortness of breath is a scary thing and I surely wouldn't want to go out gasping for air with each inhalation.

[Carolab]

82. So what?

Who wants to live 10 years longer with the present situation, anyway? I tried quitting but this f'd up administration has me so on edge it's the only way I can get any stress relief at all. I plan on sitting on a lawn chair while the nuclear fireball advances and light my last cigarette on it.

[Demeter]

85. My Mother Died at the Age of 63

Her father lived to be 89, her gandmothers reached their 90's. That's more like 30 years lost.