Posted on 10/17/2006 1:09:34 PM PDT by trumandogz
TUESDAY, Oct. 17 (HealthDay News) -- A new study finds that at least 1 in every 4 smokers will develop progressive and incurable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a much higher risk than previously believed.
COPD is a respiratory disease that results in blocked air flow to the lungs and grows progressively worse.
For this study, published online in the journal Thorax, researchers at Hvidovre Hospital analyzed data on 8,000 men and women, ages 30 to 60. All were monitored for 25 years as part of the Copenhagen City Heart Study.
At the start of the study, all the participants' lungs were healthy and working normally. However, over the course of the 25 years, the lungs of almost all the male non-smokers continued to function normally, compared to 60 percent of men who continued to smoke.
Among women, 90 percent of non-smokers still had healthy lungs at the end of 25 years, compared to 70 percent of smokers.
Overall, 25 percent of the participants developed moderate or severe COPD over the 25 years. Persistent smokers were six times more likely to develop COPD than non-smokers.
During the 25 years, there were 2,900 deaths in the study group. Of those deaths, 109 were directly attributable to COPD, and nearly all those deaths were in people who were active smokers at the start of the study. Only two non-smokers died of COPD.
The study also found a sharp decline in the risk of COPD among people who stopped smoking soon after the start of the study. Over the 25 years, none of these ex-smokers developed severe COPD.
Property rights only go as far as your neighbor's nose. Once you start hurting other people, with second hand smoke or your incisors, you forfeit your rights. That's pretty much the oldest and most fundamental tenet of Anglo Saxon Common Law known to me.
To: Toby06; Hildy
Isn't it great we get to choose?
No. Not if I have to pay for your heart-lung machine, or your chemotherapy or your tracheotomy. Your addiction hurts all of us.
361 posted on 10/18/2006 1:01:06 PM PDT by Alter Kaker ("Whatever tears one sheds, in the end one always blows one's nose." - Heine)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 360 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]
Except of course, that there is no provable harm caused by second hand smoke. If you say there is, then we can ban all sorts of stuff. For instance, BBQ's, lawn mowers, idling vehicles, chemical cleaning of decks, etc. The difference between tobacco smoke and these others is simply that some people have demonized the tobacco smoke, while the other types of smoke are still allowable. For now.
"Property rights only go as far as your neighbor's nose."
So, you are on the side of the city dwellers that get tired of the city, then complain about the terrible farm smells they have to smell because they moved to the country?
Whose side are you really on? I'm becomming very suspicious.
You're being silly. Regardless of whether or not conservatives ever succeed in axing Medicare and other such socialist nonsense (my guess is we probably won't) I don't want to pay for your addiction. I want less money coming out of my pocket to subsidize your addiction, certainly not more. I certainly want fewer people to smoke, but where the hell did I suggest that government ban smoking? You're profoundly delusional.
Do you really, honestly believe that? In 2006?
For instance, BBQ's, lawn mowers, idling vehicles, chemical cleaning of decks, etc.
Operating a BBQ indoors will kill you. Idling a car inside a closed garage is a favored suicide technique. Why do you think indoor cigarette smoking is the exception?
Well, dear heart, I have only "tattled" twice in what . . . 8+ years. Once was a fiercely lewd and harshly foul worded troll that was banned I guess multiple times or some such and had just appeared again or the first time in a most horrible way and I happened to be one of the first upon his post. The other time was something about as bad but I forget the specifics. Both were years ago.
On the other hand, I've been the target of the harshest abuse rather routinely and chronically REGARDLESS of how gentle my words and tones. Some folks just do not want to read ideas which challenge their ideas and values and erupt horribly when they do. I don't consider that my problem, really.
And the screech goes on, and the screech goes on.......
Don't feel sorry for your stepfather. At least he can die a free man, who lived a long life and saw his grandchildren. Plenty of non smoking, salad eating vegetarians who can't say the same thing.
LOL! I hear you. I'm an academic and subject to the whining of the various vegetarian/vegan members of my dept. It gets tiresome.
Meanwhile, tonite I had a nice piece of left over pot roast followd by 1 (I'm being good) scoop of Hagen Dasz. Screw 'em.
Enjoy the ice cream while you can. Banzhaf and the health nazis are coming for you next.
Second hand fat. Did you ever read the ingredients and the nutritional information on one of those tubs of ice cream? 45% DA fat, 190 calories. And that's just one scoop.
The rest of us are paying for people's addiction to chocolate Ben and Jerry's ice cream in the form of higher health insurance premiums.
My cousin had to have his stomach stapled and almost died from diabetes. The horror.
You're next.
Great to see life saving candid truth on such threads.
Altar Kracker wrote:
Operating a BBQ indoors will kill you. Idling a car inside a closed garage is a favored suicide technique. Why do you think indoor cigarette smoking is the exception?
_____________________________________________________
WAYR.
See the South Park threads for the definition.
You're obviously too lazy to read the real research and rely on the same drive by media reports as your liberal progressive brethren.
Before you respond with some angry four letter words, why don't you tell everyone your learned medical, scientific opinion on the Enstrom/Kabat study. Or your legal opinion on Judge Osteens ruling in the 1993 EPA case.
My guess is you have never heard of Enstrom or Osteen. You're just talking out of your ass.
I won't even waste my time posting the links. Google it yourself.
Before you respond with some angry four letter words, why don't you tell everyone your learned medical, scientific opinion on the Enstrom/Kabat study.
Utter nonsense. You do realize that the Enstrom/Kabat study was funded by a front-group, called the "Center for Indoor Air Research," which was in turn 100% funded by the United States tobacco industry? I'm shocked! Shocked! that they failed to connect second hand smoke and cancer. You gotta do better than that.
As for specific problems with the study (and believe me, there are many!), well, I'm a rocket scientist, not a public health expert, so I'd refer you to this critical appraisal.
Or your legal opinion on Judge Osteens ruling in the 1993 EPA case.
You mean the 1998 case, not the 1993 case. The EPA study came out in 1993, but the ruling was in '98. As for your Judge Osteen, do you know that, before becoming a judge, he worked as a lobbyist for... YUP! the Tobacco Institute? I can't honestly imagine why he'd support the tobacco industry... Great sources you have!
So now that we're talking studies (and I'll ignore your puerile name-calling, Mr. Orwell), what's your beef with the 2002 survey by the 12 leading public health experts in the world, brought together by the World Health Organization, of every existing passive smoking study which concluded, and I quote:
" there is a statistically significant and consistent association between lung cancer risk in spouses of smokers and exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke from the spouse who smokes. The excess risk is of the order of 20% for women and 30% for men and remains after controlling for some potential sources of bias and confounding."
"Why do you think indoor cigarette smoking is the exception?"
Dosage is the key.
"I'm a rocket scientist, not a public health expert"
How on earth are you allowed to breath in the second hand fumes from the rocket fuel. I am tired of paying for your health care resulting in such a dangerous profession. You should be utterly ashamed of the drain you are placing on society.
Let's also ban coal mining, crab fishing, fire departments and construction workers. All pose significant dangers to the employees and cause a drain on society's health program.
I never said that you were the tattler. My point was that you seem to think that only smokers were rude, when in fact the smokers were responding in kind to attacks and rudeness sent to them first. Then take a look at which posts were pulled and which were allowed to stay.
I guess it is acceptable to take the Lord's name in vain, but not acceptable to respond to insulting posts with insults. The fact that the anti's had to tattle tells you they can't take what they dish out.
With all due respect, the posts were waaaaay over the top and extremely insulting, and that's only the posts to me that I saw. I'm only how guessing at how much worse the ones removed before I got a chance to read them were. But rest assured, that the posts reached the level of "vile"
I don't. Could you pack any more strawmen into a shorter piece of inane fluff if you wanted to?
You're lecturing me on dosage? Your point was apparently that indoor polutants aren't a health issue, and I proved you wrong without having to think too hard. The evidence that tobacco -- and of course passive inhalation of tobacco -- causes cancer, heart disease and other ailments is so overwhelming at this point, in 2006, your only way to avoid admitted it is to engage in silly ad hominem rhetoric.
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