Posted on 10/16/2021 12:23:20 PM PDT by DallasBiff
Real science does not take shortcuts—and works diligently to avoid confusing causation with correlation.
If demographic A smokes, drinks, uses various drugs and has unprotected sex with multiple partners (for example) it can be very difficult to sort out exactly what caused what negative health effect.
I am not trying to argue tobacco is safe—I am just saying that a lot of “science” these days takes short-cuts that muddy the waters.
It MAY give you cancer…..some smokers never get it.
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My youngest son has been smoking since he was a teen. He's 50 now. Back in 2019 he went through surgery for cancerous polyps, and six months of chemo. He's cut down on his smoking, but he hasn't quit. I might also add that during the surgery, they took out at least 70 lymph nodes, which has compromised his immune system. When they did his initial scan in 2019, to check on whether the cancer had spread anywhere else, they found a small polyp or cyst-like tissue in his lung. They did a biopsy, but found no cancer, and will continue to monitor it. During his chemo, he ended up with a blood clot in his lung...a side effect of the chemo. He had to inject himself with Heparin for the remainder of his treatments. Earlier this year, he and his wife got the shots, so of course with all the fears of blood clots from the vaccines, and his history of getting a blood clot in his lung during chemo, I worry even more about him now. My oldest son got the shots over the summer. He'll be 55 next month. My one goal in life is not to outlive my kids, and I pray every night that neither of them will fall for the bull$hit, and get any booster shots.
Not the nicotine but something in the tar perhaps? However it doesn’t negate that those with COPD who may not be currently smoking or have quit even years ago are going to be very high risk for dying of Covid and the pneumonias that stem from it. The lung damage from aveoli loss from previous copd makes covid a real threat.
I’m waiting for data on pot smoking, if the tars from that also might have a protective quality!
It might be ironic to discover that getting stoned from pot once a day with a large number of people doing it will squash the pandemic. (yeah I know,,,not plausible, just funny to think about. I’m not a pot advocate)
It's cheaper to take up drinking these days.
Or maybe the nicotine, tar, and hot smoke kills the lung cells that the virus would attack.
Interesting article , maybe it is because there are not many people that still smoke.
I am a smoker so interested in this study.
My sister, the second-oldest in the family stopped smoking when it was discovered she had four aneurysms in her head. One had been so big it caused her eye to turn in towards her nose. She had surgery, and they tied off the inner carotid artery on that side. That one artery had been feeding three of the aneurysms. The one aneurysm that was left, was in the back of her head, and they were keeping an eye on that one via MRI's. Five years after she quit smoking, she was diagnosed with lung cancer. Within 18 months, she was dead. She was 69. Both my parents were smokers and died of lung cancer as well. My mother was also 69, and my Dad was 73. My other two siblings were smokers too, but stopped smoking. My only brother died at 51 of a massive heart attack, and the oldest sister, who had been in adult-assisted living homes most of her life because she was an alcoholic, was forced to stop smoking because of her living arrangements. She died of a stroke at 74. I'm 74 now...never smoked. You bet I feel like I'm living on borrowed time.
I have a relative in his 70s diagnosed recently with COPD and he’s never been a smoker. And his profession for most of his life was as a butcher - not where I’d expect air conditions to be contributors to COPD.
Smokers should get tax breaks if their smoking lowers covid risks. right?
I pray for you and your family.
My family story, my mother smoked for 50 years(since she was in her early teens) and I was a indoctrinated smoke nazi, and demanded that she give up her beloved Salem's.
Afterwards, she would request to be in the smoking section at a restaurant, so she could smell the smoke.
Anyways, after 7 years after quitting smoking, she had breast cancer and had a double masectomy. After that her kidney had grown to the size of a football and had to have it removed.
She marched on as a trooper as best as she could, but succumed to old age at the age of 80 and 11 months.
To this day I feel guilty, that I was such a indoctrinated smoke nazi, that she couldn't enjoy her smoke and cup of coffee(she still drank the coffee) and read the newspaper in peace.
That said, to me, so many dismiss tobacco as evil, while it may have some beneficial effects.
People in the best of health tend lose lung capacity of up to 50 percent over time even with good habits. It’s expected. (Some do get COPD who have not been smokers but such folks do respond more readily to treatments for it then previous heavy smokers.) Yet the loss is gradual and happens in ways that allow for overstress at times and in a manner that the rest of the body adapts to in a constructive way. Smoking over time amplifies the effects of the expected normal tissue loss, making many copd miserably o2 hungry and very debilitated in the last stages of their lives.
That being said, it's always amazed me that Democrats have regularly gone out of their way to try to pass Bills in order to get people to stop smoking. They'll support a woman's right to kill her baby, but won't afford that same woman the right to smoke herself to death.
You are exactly correct.
“People in the best of health tend lose lung capacity of up to 50 percent over time even with good habits.”
I don’t believe it. If the health is otherwise good with no systemic issues and no bad habits, I think loss of lung capacity is derived from gradual lessening of lung use - becoming gradually more sedentary and less active over time. Older folks who do not have major health issues and remain physically very active still have lung capacity equal to their younger age.
All the studies I read did not consider variables in life activity, just age, in determining rates of lunch capacity decline; but most often what happens is the rate of physical activity declines with age, and I think then it is lung capacity that follows that.
I said “up to” 50 percent. Everyone is different and none of us will leave this Earth alive. I only say it because I know these things from my years as an RN. Genetics, exercise, strength, good habits do help as you said. Also while one might lose pulmonary function over time naturally, there is nothing that says that what you keep can’t be strengthened and protected.
Interesting nonetheless
Still maybe true. Have to be infected first
I qhit tobacco 10 years ago, I vape now, pure nicotine juice.
All my air is filtered through the 1000 degree spark p!ug of the combustion chamber in my vape coil, lol
I watched this thing from afar - when US authorities were publicly “Nothing to worry about here, go to parades, hug a chinaman” as it was hitting China hard. I knew it was going to he a complete debacle once it did get here.
Anyway one of the curious things being reported at that time out of China was that ex-smokers in particular (as opposed to smokers or, people who had never smoked) were having really bad outcomes if they did become infected. Pretty wacky, but that’s what they were reporting.
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