Posted on 09/14/2008 12:42:35 AM PDT by neverdem
An unsettling fact about lung cancer is that not even clean living can guarantee a free pass. A significant proportion of cases — 10 to 15 percent — occur in people who never smoked, and just in the United States, 16,000 to 24,000 a year die.
What causes the disease in nonsmokers is not known, though researchers suspect genetic susceptibility combined with exposure to cancer-causing substances like asbestos, radon, certain solvents and other people’s tobacco smoke.
A huge new study conducted in Europe, North America and Asia, based on 2.4 million nonsmokers who had lung cancer, provides new information about just who is at risk.
Male nonsmokers are more likely than female nonsmokers to die of the disease, the study found, and the overall risk to nonsmokers is not increasing.
“Concerns have been raised that the risk was higher in women and that the risk was increasing, but this study counters those two misperceptions,” said Dr. Michael J. Thun, the lead author of the study and the head of epidemiologic research for the American Cancer Society. The study is being published online in PLoS Medicine.
Dr. Thun emphasized that although nonsmokers do have some risk, smokers are much worse off: a man who never smoked has a 1.1 in 100 risk of dying from lung cancer, but it jumps to 1 in 5 if he smokes. In women, the risk goes from 0.8 in 100 to 1 in 8. The figures vary, depending on how much a person smokes.
Today, about 59 percent of people in the United States say they never smoked, up from 44 percent in 1960.
The study found that among those who never smoked, Asians living in Asia (not those in the United States) and African-Americans had higher rates of illness and death from lung cancer...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
OU research yields pancreatic cancer breakthrough
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I am just glad to see a study which looks at things like radon and asbestos instead of evil tobacco
The whole smoking situation is like global warming. The more people do to try to stop global warming, the worse they claim it gets. The more they raise taxes on cigarettes, the more people quit, yet they claim the cancer rate gets higher. I call B.S.
Well, there’s no doubt that there are few legal things you can do to your body that are worse than the potential side effects of smoking.
Everything from lung cancer to heart attacks to stroke to erectile dysfunction are linked to smoking tobacco. It gets a bad rap, but if you’re going to do tobacco, you’re probably better off chewing.
That said, there are plenty of other risks for lung cancer. Coal miners and shipyard workers used to get it from exposure to microparticles, and no doubt China is going to see an increase in mesotheliomas and adenoarcinomas of the lung in the very near future.
“The more they raise taxes on cigarettes, the more people quit, yet they claim the cancer rate gets higher. I call B.S.”
It takes years for cancer to develop. The rise in cancer you’re seeing is from the Virginia Slims and the like that targeted women in the 1980s. Lung cancer in men is actually declining; it’s rising in women.
You’ll note that rise in women corresponded with their increasing use of cigarettes.
With that said the average person has very little to worry about as eventually something will get you and odds are it will be heart disease or cancer.
I know that whenever I smell something it is because microscopic particles have made their way into my body. Which of course means I am getting, gasoline, bleach, smoke, plastics, oils, etc. etc. into my body every single day. But I can't stop living just to lower my risk from one of 100s of disease I could get in my lifetime.
I have no problem with dying because of COPD because I still smoke a pack of filtered cigerattes in every two days, that's my problem. And that may be how I die, since we all do.
However, the whole "second-hand" smoke issue is nonsense. I can appreciate those who don't want to smell the smoke as I didn't when I had quit, but to think that some poor cafe latte drinking citizens are going to die because there is some nicotine smoke wafting in their general diluted by the air around them. Just one more stupid hysterical belief. There are so many other chemicals in the air that are much more detrimental a persons health that some second-hand cigarette smoke waifing along the border walk, out in the fresh air.
These behavior Nazis have little clue on the minute effect of some second hand smoke. These whiny pissy little socialists probably don't even know how much cigarette gasses in would take to shorten their lives.
Like all things that the social behaviorists espouse, they rarely have the abosulte scienceLast thougt: The Hollywood industy promotes smoking in probably 40% or their way cool adventure/sci-fi/romantic comedies. The hypocricy of Hollywood elite is stagering.
I hope I die to my smoking grandmother's age of 101!!!
All the “air fresheners” people have slapped everywhere in their houses contain chemicals that merely -block- your brain from preceiving the smell of ‘stinky things’; none of them get actually rid of the odors.
They are neurotoxins that “paralyze” your olfactory system so you can’t smell ‘bad things’.
ALL perfumes contain formaldehyde as a preservative, along with lots of other unregulated chemical goodies.
Just think of all the wonderous poisons we apply to our armpits every day...a place full of lymph glands which then disperse the crap cheerfully throughout your whole body.
[your skin is osmotic and what goes on goes ~in~]
Every time I see a commercial for some new “air freshener” where the woman sprays a load of the stuff into the air and then sucks it in with a smile of beatific joy upon her face, I *cringe*.
New carpets, new cars, new paneling and anything that contains particle board will outgas formaldehyde for *years*.
On the upside, everyone will smell just wonderful while they’re in the hospital waiting to die.
I think it’s 1/2 genetic and 1/2 environment. Environment meaning everything from smoking to tightly sealed office buildings to synthetic carpets to just about everything around us. You can go live on a deserted island in the Pacific and maybe fare better I guess.
I agree. My basic arsenal for cleaning now involves baking soda, white vinegar, and essential oils. Many of the essential oils kill germs and are not toxic like ammonia and bleach because they are not synthetic chemicals. Vinegar kills mold and mildew (it doesn’t bleach it like chlorox, but then chlorox doesn’t kill it like many assume it does).
Baking soda sprinkled on sinks, in the tub/shower, and in the toilet, then sprayed with white vinegar with a few drops of orange, lavendar, and tea tree oils, and then scrubbed gently with your favorite brush or scrubber, leaves a sparkling clean bathroom that is truly clean without toxic chemicals, and it smells good to boot. That combo works well in the kitchen, also.
For windows I use vinegar diluted with water and use microfiber cloths.
Floors get a mopping with vinegar water and perhaps a small dab of dish detergent if needed.
My understanding that in China lung cancer is a large killer of women who work over unvented stoves with cooking oils.
Both my parents (and their friends) were heavy smokers in the 1960’s and 1970’s. I used to sit there in the clouded fog of cigarette smoke every night watching TV. I wouldn’t be surprised if I came down with Lung Cancer before this is all overwith.
The lifespan of the human grows longer every day. Once we eliminate all of these so-called harmful chemicals, smokes, preservatives, you get the idea, can we expect our lifespan to increase or decrease? History shows that without better living thru chemistry life expectancy is actually shorter.
Agreed. The wondeRful strides made in medicine that are legthening our lives are being offset by the bad chemicals going into our bodies, through lungs and skin and stomach.
Don’t get too caught up in your fears. Cancer is an age related disease and there is no evidence that there is an industrial age boom in cancer other than we are living longer.
Also remember the epidemiologists discovered the link of cigarettes to cancer becuase smokers were 10 times more likely to get it. Reversing those numbers means than we can expect 1/10 cases of lung cancer to not be related to smoking. There is no mystery, lung cancer is a disease that has always afflicted humanity.
If they extracted the ammonia from fermented cow urine would you be more comfortable. As a chemical, ammonia is no more “synthetic” than acetic acid (vineger).
You wouldn’t agree that ammonia is more toxic/dangerous to the human body than vinegar?
Don’t tell me that dousing ammonia on a salad instead of vinegar is safe, or making pickles with ammonia instead of vinegar is a good idea.
If you do you are an ignorant arrogant doofus.
They are both normal biological products. Your body is capable of producing both amonia and acetic acid.
There is good epidemiogical evidence that cultures which eat more pickled foods have a higher rate of stomach cancer. I could say that acetic acid is a potential carcinogen whereas ammonia has never been linked to cancer.
I wouldn’t put dish soap on my salad either so take that for what it’s worth.
You can clean with whatever you want but there is no inherent safety to “artifical” chemicals versus “natural” chemicals.
Ignorant arrogant doofus? No I’m a stinky poopy face.
This message brought to you by the ACS, the American Chemical Society, better living through chemistry. ;)
Societies that eat more pickled foods have a higher rate of stomach cancer. Ammonia has never been linked to cancer so take that for what it’s worth.
BTW, I wouldn’t put dish soap on my salad either but you seem to be okay with using it on your floor.
My point is that there is no difference between “natural” and “artifical” chemicals.
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