Posted on 06/18/2009 7:02:20 PM PDT by Hank Kerchief
My allergist told me that people who are disposed to lung issues like asthma and allergies, are the ones likely to get emphysema from smoking. That’s why some people can smoke all their lives and live to be 90 and never have a problem with smoking.
They are the lucky ones because there’s not much of a way to determine beforehand who those are. You’re taking your chances with smoking.
Well said.
We bought a house where smokers had lived before and when I washed the molding, it turned from a nasty, sea green to light turquoise. The water was yellow and disgusting beyond belief.
And that was just what happened to stick on the walls over the years. I can imagine what their lungs looked like.
I’ll remember to tell my patients in the hospital dying of emphysema how much good smoking has done them. Ditto the ones dying of lung cancer. I’m sure they will enthusiastically agree with you.
It’s not much different than the whole asbestos thing.
The only people who got asbestosis were those who worked for decades in asbestos plants without wearing any protection.
Now, you can’t do ANYTHING with asbestos without violating some huge amount of laws.
Never mind that asbestos is a rock and found in the outdoor environment.
When I took my meteorology courses, we were told that when the wind is out of the NW, the air in the Adirondacks has a higher level of asbestos than allowed inside by NYS indoor air quality standards. The asbestos blows across Lake Ontario from the cliffs on the shore on the Canadian side.
Hi Mom MD. Long time no see.
I am confident that before long you will be assured that their cancer and emphysema came from something besides smoking. After all, we just saw study results that proved that smoking is good for you.
Hi Metmom! Good to see you.
I have the advantage over the other side. I have been reading studies that prove nothing but garbage for years, and we had classes in how statistics can be manipulated.
If they want to smoke, go ahead. But dont insult my intelligence by claiming some health benefit from it!
“Sure it's good for you......”
In spite of it helping my sister and my nephew with their problem, I'd never argue it's a positive. I will say I don't think it's as bad as portrayed unless people are smoking a pack a day or better for some time. I smoke four to six cigarettes a day and several of them I probably only take a puff or two from right after lighting. I have better lung capacity than most of the people my age who don't smoke but also don't exercise. I'm sorry for your family members, my f-i-l died from emphysema and he smoked several packs of Camels a day all his life. If chain smoking like that didn't cause him great problems I'd have been shocked.
Like many other things, I think it has to do a lot with what you're predisposed to and almost as much with what really constitutes excess. Several of my friends who smoke think that a pack a day is not excess, while I tend to think it is. With the current prices, it's at the very least excess spending when it gets to that level. I have a good many other friends who don't smoke but a surprising number of them are having sugar problems, two of them will probably be taking insulin soon. So, excess in a lot of things has consequences and I tend to see smoking the same way.
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We the People Sheeple of the United States Nanny State, in Order to form a more perfect Union Socialist Utopia, establish Justice Socially engineer a country of non smoking, physically fit, seat belt and helmet wearing teetotalers, ensure domestic Tranquility Smoking bans in bars, limits on unhealthy food and social drinking, provide for the common defense Universal Healthcare, promote the general Welfare health of the population whether they like it or not, in order to save above mentioned Universal Healthcare entitlement program from bankruptcy, and secure the Blessings of Liberty Dependency to ourselves progressive liberals and our Posterity Hitler Youth who we brainwash through public school education, do ordain decree and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Nanny State of Liberals.
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I believe it.
I'm also sure that attorneys take a class in law school on creative billing to learn how to extract the most amount of money on a sliding scale depending on ability to pay.
Falls under the category of..."we knew it was true but just couldn't prove it'.
God bless America! Land of the free and home of the brave!
If freedom fighters don’t do something, it will soon be “Land that Mexico took back and home of the Nannies”.
It's too bad that this poor 101 year old marathon runner and former military fitness instructor Buster Martin, didn't know about what his lungs will look like or he wouldn't have smoked since age 7 and he might have gotten a much better time in his recently completed London marathon.
Tobacco smoke nearly doubles glutathione, catalase and SOD which are the main detox & antioxidant internal enzymes in human body (see reference links here). Hence smoking will double your detox rates and help clean up any industrial or environmental toxins you are exposed to. Therefore people exposed to toxins at work will find smoking helpful which in turn will result in statistical correlations between smoking and diseases caused by such exposures.
These two effects (protection and superficial correlation) were nicely observed in this 1999 German study of aluminum workers (see full pdf here) -- among potroom workers (they are the most exposed ones to the highly toxic aluminum dusts & vapors), smokers had 6 times lower rates of respiratory problems than non-smokers and the emphysema type of damage was observed only on non-smokers. Of course, the potroom workers had much more lung damage and they also smoked at much higher rates than control group (other workers not exposed to aluminum). Hence, if you combines all workers, ignoring the exposure parameter, you will find that smokers had more respiratory problems than non-smokers. But when you compare those in the heavily exposed group, the smokers by virtue of their doubled detox rates, fare much better than non-smokers. Smoking is simply a form of self-medication and a statistical marker for hardships (which in turn cause 'smoking related diseases').
In order to rationalize this kind of "wrong" result, the strongly antismoking authors came up with a theory "healthy smoker effect" (without any tests or supporting evidence) declaring that those workers who worked in this harsh environment and still smoked must have been naturally tougher and stronger than non-smoking workers and problem "solved" (see more discussion in Dr. Siege's forum).
Of course, if they checked animal experiments, they would have found the same protective effect of tobacco smoke observed with perfect clarity (see reference links & discussion here). One of the strongest such examples was the large series of experiments sponsored by the National Cancer Institute which they undertook in early 1970s in order to provide scientific backing for the planned workplace smoking bans. Poor folks, they really meant well -- to show how much more damage industrial carcinogens and toxins will do when coupled with tobacco smoke. For test animals, they picked Syrian Golden Hamsters, known previously to be particularly sensitive to tobacco smoke. Everything else was done just right, too, the heavy exposure at near asphyxiating smoke concentrations, no natural feedbacks to control dosing and pacing, Hepa filtered air for non-smoking controls, biochemically highly damaging once a week quit-for-day "recovery" periods,... Just imagine the faces of the NCI committee members when the results of their pricey investment for this massive series of experiments came back (from the final report p.40, pdf):
and while they watched the slides, dozens of them for each variation, all just like this one, from the report, showing the survival and weight differences between smoking and nonsmoking hamsters:
“To me, there is something morbid about an excessive preoccupation with health. “
I hear ya, I have been seeing it steadily increase over the years since the early 90’s.
Every other commercial is “Take our product or you will die.. oh and talk to your doctor”
Or
“eat this or you will die” and so on .. its like we as a nation went on some kind of health kick over the last few years.
I am wondering if this whole govt run healthcare thing is not behind it.. ya know, slowly whip the sheeple into a frenzy about health, make them run to their doctors for this and that, become scared of every illness and get checkups 4 times a year.. all setting us up for Big Brother health care because once the govt controls and pays for your healthcare.. they control your life.
Not sure if how I typed it makes any sense.. but there has to be SOMETHING behind this massive decade long health kick they have been trying to put people on.
Me, I find those that see a doctor less end up less “Sick”
I have watched people get on the “doctor-mill” as I call it, take one pill for this, a second for the side effects from the first, and another for the feelings the second gives them.. next thing ya know.. the start looking and acting like they are 80 years old in their 40s.. me I smoke and feel just as good as I did in my 20s.
I'm here to help you and provide a public service for a fee. I am a fully trained psychologist specializing in Nanny State Behavior Syndrome (NSBS). This liberal, left wing, social engineering disease is horrible and can strike anyone at anytime. It can even strike Conservatives who believe in free markets and limited government.
Thankfully, Dr. Feel (a wholly owned subsiduary of Dr. Phil) is here to help you work through your problems.
Please answer the questionaire below, so I know how best to treat you. And please have your insurance card ready for the wallet biopsy. This is a Capitalist country and I don't work for free.
I discriminate against smokers because:
A. The smell of smoke is icky and yucky, it makes my hair and clothes stink and I hate walking into a bar/restaurant where people are smoking. So rather than take advantage of the free market and go somewhere that is voluntarily smoke free, I would rather use the power of the state to impose my personal preference on my fellow citizens.
A1. My __________ (choose one: Dad, Mom, Uncle, Aunt, Grandfather, Grandmother, older sister, brother, babysitter, next door neighbor, mailman) abused me by smoking ________(choose one: Marlboro, Merit, Kool, crack, Camel, Kent, marijuana) in the __________ (choose one: house, car, bar, juvenile detention center) when I was a kid.
B. My beloved ___________ (choose one: husband, wife, father, mother, brother, sister, nephew, niece, uncle, aunt, maid, dog, cat, goldfish, gay lover) died from _________(choose one: cancer, heart disease, emphysema, car crash, train wreck, terrorist attack, sting ray) because of their smoking.
C. I smoked for _____ (years) and now I am ________ (choose one: missing it, sick, dead, born again, enlightened, ashamed of myself, if I can't do it, nobody can) and want to share my experience with others.
D. The Big Tobacco companies are lying scumbags and must pay! (you're not coming down off the mountain with the tablets there)
E. I represent Big Pharmaceutical interests that benefit from the anti-smoking movement because it increases the sales of our Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) products.
F. I am a deeply caring individual in the mold of Mother Theresa and I am speaking out due to my benevolent, philanthropic, altruistic concern about the health of my fellow man.
G. I am a research scientist and grant junky, and if I don't tow the party line my grant money will disappear.
H. I'm just a garden variety Fascist and Totalitarian and get a ______ (choose one: cheap thrill, natural high, erection, orgasm) by imposing my will on other people.
I. I am a retard who believes in bogus studies, junk science, the Easter Bunny and the Toothfairy. I fear that because I walked into a bar on Spring Break in 1987, and was exposed to Second Hand Smoke I now suffer from ______(choose one: AIDS, Herpes, Athletes Foot, Jock Itch, male pattern baldness, or genital warts)
J. I am a disgruntled, prissy and angry employee of a ______(choose one: bar, restaurant, club, casino) who can't leave the job because I am a _______(choose one: slave, indentured servant, sweatshop laborer, illegal immigrant) and had no idea there was smoking going on in the place before I took the job.
K. An elected public serpent, serving as a _____ (choose one: State Assemblywoman, Senator, Freeholder, city councilman, mayor) and I have failed miserably in my job and trying to tackle really tough problems like _____ (choose one: gang violence, income taxes, property taxes, crime, corruption), so I will support a smoking ban based on the talking points and literature that "M" has given me and claim that I have actually accomplished something to help my constituents.
L. A Socialist liberal Democrat who is desperate for Universal Healthcare so the proletariet will continue to keep me in power. But if I don't do something about the "demand side" health care costs caused by such global health menaces as _________ (choose one: Marlboro, Merit, Kool, Big Macs, Whoppers, Chicken McNuggets, Budweiser, Coors, Jack Daniels) my health care entitlement program will go ________ (choose your adjective: broke, belly up, bankrupt, insolvent).
M. A professional anti-tobacco activist who makes $450,000 per year. MY GOAL IS TO REDUCE SMOKING RATES FROM 25% TO BELOW 10%. KICKING THEM OUT OF THEIR FAVORITE BAR AND RESTAURANT IS JUST A SMALL STEP TO COERCE THEM TO QUIT. I DON'T EVEN BELIEVE THE SHS NONSENSE MYSELF! Don't you dare try to ban cigarettes, if you do I will have to go back to my previous job ______(choose one: prostitute, drug dealer, pimp, state assemblyman, mayor) where I won't make nearly as much money and the bank will foreclose on my seaside villa and repo my _______(choose one: Lexus, Mercedes, BMW, Hummer, Infiniti, Acura,Jaguar, Volvo, Bentley). I take advantage of the prejudices of categories A-L above to accomplish my goal.
N. I am a Religious Fundamentalist who believes that smoking is strictly forbidden in the ______(choose one: Qu'ran, Bible, Torah, Old Testament, New Testament, David Wells' autobiography "Perfect I'm Not", Hustler Magazine)
O. I don't fit any of the above categories, I just like to argue with people.
“Smoking is good for you”
bookmarked/links
FWIW, since I switched to the fruit flavored “e-cigarette” thingie vaporizer, I notice a difference.
My lung capacity was a lot better after one week. I was up and down the soccer field yesterday instead of huffing and puffing after 4 minutes. At this rate, in a month I’ll be like Pele! Or maybe not.
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