quote:

Originally posted by WinstonSmith:
There is such a wealth of anecdotal cases of smokers getting lung cancer that it makes it tremendously difficult to dismiss the heavy correlation (approximately 145,000 lung cancers in smokers to 15,000 in non-smokers each year, U.S.).

In the absence of studies showing an equally heavy correlation, my main concern is that it's a situation where one is trying to prove a negative. No one can really prove that "smoking does not cause lung cancer".

What you're contending would be borne out by more of a directly scientific approach of cause and effect than a statistical analysis. At this point, I simply don't have the knowledge or resources to draw out that chain of causation for myself. I have to learn more.

I don't trust statistics from 'health' industry which lives off the extortion of smokers. You can look at the graphs of lung cancer mortality over 20th century, or look at Johnstone's & Colby's work, and the official story line and figures don't quite add up, as argued above. The recent marijuana news you mention add one more discordinant note to the cacophony. Essentially, I don't believe any more a word or a figure from the offical health "experts" if their "facts" somehow just happen to aid the transfer of money from my pocket to their pockets. Much of the tobacco smoking related "science" (especially the stuff in the last 15-20 years when the Big Pharma slicksters joined the racket in full force) is of that kind.

I should note that as with any other product we consume these days, one has to avoid volunteering as a guinea pig to every mass market junk or fad that comes along. In particular, I avoid any 'sugar free' product, microwaved or radiated foods, reconstituted foods, regular supermarket meats, fruits & vegetables (which IMO have terrible taste, anyway),... etc. My basic rule with foods, beverages & tobacco is to stick to the traditional ways as much as possible and to trust my taste. Another related rule is to avoid doctors, their potions and advice (other than for mechanical or self-evident macroscopic problems, such as broken bones, cuts, acute infections,... ). Regarding tobacco, that means to look for a pure, addive free leaf, grown as naturally as one can find nowdays (as far as I could find out, the American Spirit comes closest to the traditional tobacco that my grandfathers and their fathers smoked), to roll them on your own and smoke them without filters.

Finally, even though Johnstone pointed out that the "healthy" living in randomized intervention groups (exercise, "healthy" diet, no smoking...) neither extend life nor reduce diseases, there is still a grain of truth in the cartoon below:

Another thing you can not discount is the population that made up the studies and their ife history. Like the report from Italy recently published about the reduction of heart attachs in people under 60 since the smoking ban was effected.

People over 60 experienced the world war and reconstruction after it. Many experienced other upheavels and deprivations during their life times, while boomers have been pampered their whole lives and received the best food and medical care possible.

Statistically boomers should be in better shape, clean water, clean air, air conditioning, lack of early childhood illnesses, antibiotics, they have spent their lives in relative comfort and properity as opposed to their parents.

I expect to see more studies trying to make their points on this distinction. Heart attacts amongst the over 60 population remained the same after the ban.

quote:

Originally posted by Bruce:
Another thing you can not discount is the population that made up the studies and their ife history. Like the report from Italy recently published about the reduction of heart attachs in people under 60 since the smoking ban was effected. ...

You are giving far too much credit to the Italian "study" on heart attacks in Piedemont. That one doesn't need any elaborate explanation - it's as pure junk science as it gets. Even the antismoking activist Siegel blasts it as a gross example of junk science (cherry picking of data) that only discredits the "honest" fraction of anti-smoking movement.

What actually may give smokers excess heart attacks is believing a word from anti-smoking swindlers by virtue of witch doctor effect. Heart attacks are particularly sensitive gauge of stress and negative placebo. We all know of examples of a widowed spouse dying from "broken heart" within a year from losing their life mate. Allowing media and "health experts" to inject their death curse into your mind ('you're smoker, and it is killing you') may indeed do your heart harm, proportionately to the degree to which you believe into the curse.

Otherwise, if you dump our witch doctors' death curses into the trash science where they belong, tobacco smoke will protect you against both mental and inflammatory stresses, hence protect you against the heart attacks. All randomized intervention trials (which made random sample of smokers quit, then followed them up for years), all designed and carried out by anti-smokers, find no benefit from quitting for heart attacks. If the anti-smokers, despite not being shy of using every trick in the book, couldn't make the heart attack case at the hard science level (i.e. using scientific method, randomized intervention, which can detect causes & effects), that means that an unbiased hard science would find a benefit from smoking (as some "wrong" studies indicated, see also Colby's chapter 12). Any smoker's experience with soothing effects of tobacco on nerves will tell you the same, as well.

bttt