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.
It doesn’t matter, the Dems and the Gov’t still want the smokers dead, one way or the other.
The other thing the smokers simply cannot grasp is that some people really cannot tolerate it. If they were slightly more respectful of others they would face far fewer regulations.
You seem to have an issue with your family doctor washing his hands or not and translating that into research scientists being biased or foolish.
Whether your practicing doctor is arrogant or not has nothing to do with the realities that smoking causes cancer, and yes like it or not it does.. in everyone nope, but in a hell of a lot. They have even isolated the exact mechanism which it interferes with cell division to start the cancers in the first place.
You smoke for 25 years years, then stop and 3 years later are diagnosed with cancer, then want to blame it not on the fact that you abused your body for 25 years filling it with harmful and cancer causing chemicals, but on the fact 3 years ago you quit??
Please, this is nonsense. The root cause of these cancers in this study, is still the abuse that the smokers put their bodies through for decades. Even if you buy all the suppositions of this study.
I hate to burst your bubble, but nicotine is naturally found in tobacco, as well as tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, chili peppers..........
things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmm ping
I quit smoking last April, and within a month I started having allergies. I had never been bothered with them until I stopped smoking. Now I dip skoal and haven’t had any more allergies. strange
Yes it is, but its artificially added in varying doses to cigarettes... you are not just getting the natural nicotine from a tobacco leaf when you smoke a commercial cigarette.
You aren’t bursting any bubbles, just are ignorant of commercial cigarette production or willingly witholding facts.
When the smokers are dead who will be left to tax?
Actually, low sodium helped mr. mm get off blood pressure medication, which they wanted him to take because of moderate blood pressure and it’s not a ridiculously low sodium diet either.
It doesn’t work for everyone though, it has to be the kind of hypertension that is caused by sodium.
I agree about not trusting the medical profession. They’ve changed their song about so many issues so much over the last several years that when they come out with a *new* finding, I’m pretty skeptical about it (actually, I’m getting to the point where I just don’t believe it)
Extremely interesting to me because my mother-in-law passed away this year from lung cancer after abruptly quitting smoking 2 years ago. There are many other examples including I’ve heard of recently including Peter Jennings.
It is not so much that it is “added” as opposed to being concentrated either more or less during the curing process. Even the home grower who processes their own tobacco is capable of changing the nicotine levels of the end product. Additionally different types of tobacco have different levels of nicotine concentration in the plants themselves.
I assure you, I am neither ignorant of commercial production, nor willfully withholding information. There are quite a few of us on this forum who have extensively researched the processes into tobacco production and processing.
BTW, I don’t smoke commercial cigarettes, and have not done so for close to 10 years.
I am absolutely convinced that that's what's behind much of the legislation. Simple requests by non-smokers for courtesy generally aren't effective. I've even got dirty looks and snide comments for not asking but simply for just moving out of someone's smoke plume, implying that I think I'm better than everybody else.
I can't tolerate any smoke at all, no matter how much I like it, including campfires, BBQs, wood stoves, candles, whatever the source. And really, I don't find the smell of fresh cigarette smoke that offensive, it's the reaction of my body which I have no control over. And when someone tells me that it's just in my head because I hate cigarette smokers of have an agenda, well,... it doesn't go over very well.
I don't like living with respiratory problems and if I had my choice, wouldn't have them, but it doesn't help when people arrogantly assert their right to do what they want with no regard to how it affects others. Hence the legislation. It's the only way some people have found to protect themselves and that's why I'm never going to complain about it.
The fact that your MIL smoked at all — not that she quit “abruptly” - is almost certainly the reason she died of lung cancer. My condolences.
I quit “abruptly” 6 years ago and am so glad I did. Saved a ton of money and don’t smell so bad any more.
You can indeed influence the concentration through various methods, however commercial cigarettes do far mroe than changing curing methods to influence nicotine levels, they use all sorts of chemicals to their product to influence nicotine levels, smoke, etc etc etc.
No commercial cigarette sold in the US is simply dried tobacco leaf shredded and wrapped in paper, with a filter added.
If they were, they’d smoke smell and taste similar to mini cigars, which as I’m sure you know they aren’t.
Sorry!! Nasty government, Nasty Cigarette, Life is all about personal choice. I support your decision regardless.
You should study how far reaching the Medusa of the DEA is in your doctors life. The doctors of the USA is now the laskey of the DEA. This agency went from “Preventing Diversion of Drugs” to total control.
of have an agenda, = OR have an agenda,
“The other thing the smokers simply cannot grasp is that some people really cannot tolerate it. If they were slightly more respectful of others they would face far fewer regulations.”
Well said. I’m always amazed at the Freepers who seem to think that folks who can’t tolerate smoke are just lying or should just suck it up.
All the dems have to do is regulate the tobacco like an opiate, turn it over to the DEA and it will dead in one week.
Smoking ain’t worth the cost . . . physical & financial.
At $2.50 per pack, smoking three packs per day for 50 years (when you could have invested the money in the S&P 500 earning 10% per year) will only cost you just over $4 million dollars! All $4 million dollars up in smoke!
Plus a person gets a high likelihood of emphesyma, cancer, and heart disease.
It ain’t worth it.
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