Posted on 11/12/2007 6:51:35 AM PST by fanfan
According to three doctors at the KS Hegde Medical Academy in Mangalore, India, writing in the journal Medical Hypotheses, giving up smoking can kill you. Arunachalam Kumar, Kasaragod Mallya, and Jairaj Kumar were "struck by the more than casual relationship between the appearance of lung cancer and an abrupt and recent cessation of the smoking habit in many, if not most, cases."
In 182 of the 312 cases they had treated, an habitual smoker of at least a pack a day, for at least a quarter-century, had developed lung cancer shortly after he gave up smoking.
They surmised a biological mechanism protects smokers against cancer, which is strengthened by years of determined smoking. When the smoker quits, "a surge and spurt in re-activation of bodily healing and repair mechanisms of chronic smoke-damaged respiratory epithelia is induced and spurred by an abrupt discontinuation of habit," and "goes awry, triggering uncontrolled cell division and tumour genesis."
An evolutionary argument could support this hypothesis. Man is the only animal who cooks his food, and thousands of generations of our ancestors, pent up in smoke-filled caves, could easily account for this biological mechanism.
Since the findings of Kumar, Mallya, and Kumar coincide with my own medical hypothesis, based on my own anecdotal evidence, I hasten to embrace them. Several deceased friends and family, starting with my paternal grandfather, perished shortly after they quit smoking -- not only from lung cancer, but from other causes ranging from previously undiagnosed heart disease to industrial accident.
The same general principle would apply: that a body long accustomed to a (frankly addictive) substance, goes haywire when the substance is removed. In the good old days, people instinctively understood things like that, without the need for medical research. And it was inconceivable that, for instance, hospitals would prevent patients from smoking, who were already medically challenged on other fronts.
Other medical literature has documented other risks of non-smoking, that include neurotic depression, violent irritability, and obscene weight gain. But these tend to be discounted because they lead to death only indirectly.
Likewise, indirect evidence for the dangers of not smoking comes from the 150th anniversary number of Atlantic magazine. P.J. O'Rourke points to (actual, serious) U.S. historical statistics showing that, in the period 1973-94, annual per capita consumption of cigarettes fell from 4,148 to 2,493. In the same period, the incidence of lung and bronchial cancer rose from 42.5 to 57.1 cases per 100,000 population.
In the past I have flagged UN statistics showing that life expectancy was nicely proportional to tobacco consumption, internationally -- so that, for example, Japan and South Korea were respectively first and second in both life expectancy and tobacco consumption. The lowest tobacco consumption was in Third World countries, where we also found some of the shortest life expectancies.
I think we could also find historical statistics showing there is a reliable, worldwide relationship between rising tobacco consumption, and rising life expectancy, nation by nation, throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
As Al Gore likes to say, "the science is irrefutable."
The weakness in that last statement being, that there is no such thing as irrefutable science. There is nothing in the whole history of science that is not tentative. And while, in astronomy, I remain convinced that the Earth revolves around the sun, I would not put all my money even on that proposition, but, given attractively long odds, reserve a penny bet on the sun going round the Earth.
If my reader is planning to give up smoking in the face of what I report, then courage to him, and I will avoid saying, "Go ahead, make my day." I am not in the pay of the tobacco lobby -- on the contrary, I seem to be paying them -- and am in principle indifferent to what substances others decide to use or abuse. My dander rises only when they try to interfere with my own freedom, through the childish, petty, and essentially totalitarian public campaigns against harmless smokers -- buttressed by scientific claims weaker than the above.
There is one more hypothesis with which I would like to leave my reader. It is that the kind of quack "science" that was used to ban smoking has now mutated into the kind that is used to flog global warming. It should have been resisted then; it should certainly be resisted now.
Now I’m wondering.
Know this: If smoking/lung cancer/sponge lung or whatever doesn't get you, something else most assuredly will.
One of the beauties of life on this level of existence is that we can literally pick our own poison. We're only here for a while. Live life as you want it; it is, after all, your life.
For sure, all of our actions have consequences, but those are the types of things I believe we are supposed to learn about during our stay here.
Just one guy's opinion...
CA....
Carolyn
Oh stop. People do have reactions to tobacco smoke. Does it matter if it is anaphylactic or anaphylactoid? No, tobacco smoke cause some people to have trouble breathing, FACT! Does it matter if you break your right leg or your left leg? Your argument makes just as much sense.
No, I am not saying that, just have always thought that she did so good giving up smoking and really trying to have a healthy lifestyle for ten years with diet and arobics and then gets lung cancer, seemed odd.
Unless they're hooked up to an oxygen tank....then KABOOM! There's a death by smoking I wouldn't want to experience!
Put them on a nicotine patch if they need nicotine that bad!
Interesting article! I’ve stopped smoking for verious periods of time (the most recent for over a year now). Should I start smoking again to insure I don’t develop lung cancer?
Sort of does if you drive a stick shift---sorry, just couldn't resist :-)
I used to live in South Korea and it was quite a sight seeing doctors standing outside with their patients (in hospital gowns, IV's etc.) smoking together. I imagine that's what it would have looked like in the '50's here in the US as well. LOL!
There's a scene in April Snow where the wife has awakened from a coma after a severe car accident. She's in a wheelchair and her husband is pushing it and when they get outside for a talk, she asks him for a cigarette. He asks her if the doctor said it was alright and she said yes. Surreal, IMO! LOL!
Oh, come on, think about starting smoking and how cool you would look to the other kids.
My experience is exactly the opposite.
I am a non smoker and I think that smoking is about the dumbest thing you can do, but I cannot tell you when I met a rude smoker. They are almost courteous to a fault.
The anti smoking nazis will push their agenda no matter what. The rudeness — or lack of it by smokers — matters not. They have an agenda and nothing will stop them.
My experience is exactly the opposite.
I am a non smoker and I think that smoking is about the dumbest thing you can do, but I cannot tell you when I met a rude smoker. They are almost courteous to a fault.
The anti smoking nazis will push their agenda no matter what. The rudeness — or lack of it by smokers — matters not. They have an agenda and nothing will stop them.
“Peter Jennings resumed chain smoking after the 09/11 attacks.”
Yes, I remember reading that too. He had quit 20 years earlier and then resumed after 9/11.
KIDS? LMAO! I am nowhere NEAR a "kid"...;-) (Maybe at heart)
"Medical Hypotheses takes a deliberately different approach to peer review. Most contemporary practice tends to discriminate against radical ideas that conflict with current theory and practice. Medical Hypotheses will publish radical ideas, so long as they are coherent and clearly expressed. Furthermore, traditional peer review can oblige authors to distort their true views to satisfy referees, and so diminish authorial responsibility and accountability. In Medical Hypotheses, the authors' responsibility for integrity, precision and accuracy of their work is paramount. The editor sees his role as a "chooser", and not a "changer": choosing to publish what are judged to be the best papers from those submitted."
It isn't peer reviewed. LOL
Also from their website:
Impact factor of this journal 2006: 1.299 2005 Impact Factor 0.920<BR> (sic -- lol, badly written webpage) 2004 Impact Factor 0.607 Journal Citation Reports® 2007, published by Thomson Scientific
In conclusion, I think that we have reason to be skeptical of non-peer reviewed papers published in journals that nobody reads that make very unusual claims. XD
LOL! I thought about getting into and out of the car too.
You know, my husband and I had stick shifts for years. Loved driving them, but finally it dawned on me that we should have at least one automatic just in case.
If you had been alive in the US in the 50’s you would have seen the doctors and their patients smoking INSIDE the patients rooms in the hospital.
Best of luck to you.
Do what feels right, may actually be good medical advice.
Your body will tell you......
How many people wait to quit smoking until they begin to feel unhealthy?
THese genius doctors ever think of that? Maybe these old life long smokers finally quit smoking because they feel something is awry! And they feel that way because SOMETHING IS AWRY! Then they die a few short years later.
HELLO?
Maybe the key is to quit BEFORE you feel you need to.
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