70 replies to this topic

[nightlight]

Smoking anything should be avoid at all costs.

Definitely. We certainly wouldn't wish the pharmaceutical industry profits to go down, without all those additional millions of Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, diabetes, arthritis, asthma, depression, ADHD... patients, who would have otherwise been protected from those and many other diseases by the devil's weed, the root of all evil (for the Big Pharma profits).

[doug123]

First, the mainstream news report:

News Source: Health Day News



Cigarette Smoking May Lower Parkinson's Risk
Tobacco products conferred some protection, although not for those over 75, study says

TUESDAY, July 10 (HealthDay News) -- Long-term and current smokers have a lower risk of Parkinson's disease than the general population, researchers say in a report that confirms previous observations that people with Parkinson's disease were less likely to be smokers.

Dr. Beate Ritz of the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Public Health and colleagues analyzed data from 11,809 people involved in 11 studies conducted between 1960 and 2004. Of those, 2,816 individuals had Parkinson's disease.

The data showed that current smokers and those who had continued to smoke within five years of Parkinson's disease diagnosis had the lowest risk. People who quit smoking up to 25 years before diagnosis also had a reduced risk. Other tobacco products such as cigars, pipe tobacco and chewing tobacco showed reduced risk as well.

The association between tobacco use and Parkinson's disease disappeared for people older than 75, however. And while the association was strong for people of Caucasian or Asian ancestry, it did not hold for Hispanics or blacks.

The researchers wrote that the biochemical basis for the effect is not well understood, but that either nicotine or carbon monoxide may, in fact, protect brain cells that produce dopamine. Dopamine is a chemical produced in the brain that enables the body to coordinate movement. Once 80 percent of the neurons that produce dopamine begin to fail, the symptoms of Parkinson's disease appear. Symptoms include tremors in hands and feet and a lack of flexibility or balance.

Writing in the July issue of the Archives of Neurology, the researchers called or further research to understand what chemicals in cigarettes and tobacco might be protective against Parkinson's disease.

More information

To learn about Parkinson's disease, visit the Parkinson's Disease Foundation.
http://www.pdf.org/

-- Madeline Vann

SOURCE: Archives of Neurology, news release, July 9, 2007

Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
http://www.healthday.com/

Here's some information regarding the primary source:

Archives of Neurology -- a publication of the American Medical Association (AMA).

The follwing definition is provided by Answers.com by "Public Health Encyclopedia:"

American Medical Association

The American Medical Association (AMA) was founded in 1847 to "promote the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health." Since its beginning, the AMA has been dedicated to improving health and well-being through both clinical and community strategies.

Before the discovery of antibiotics, physicians had few effective clinical tools. In its early years, the AMA directed policy recommendations toward implementing strategies related to emerging discoveries in sanitation and hygiene. For example, the AMA House of Delegates (HOD) recommended that each state develop a board of health and that medical schools include hygiene in curriculums. Physicians became crusaders for prevention in their communities. Dr. Henry I. Bowditch, the twenty-ninth president of the AMA, founded the Massachusetts State Board of Health in 1859— the first agency of its kind in the United States. In 1872, Bowditch was instrumental in starting the American Public Health Association (APHA).

During the twentieth century, biological and technological advances were used by both medical and public health practitioners to implement highly effective strategies for improving public health. It became possible to treat diseased individuals effectively within a clinical setting with less reliance on community interventions. By the mid-1950s, cancer and other chronic diseases had replaced infectious diseases as the main causes of mortality and morbidity, and during the latter half of the century it became clear to both medical and public health practitioners that personal behaviors such as tobacco use, violence, alcohol misuse, and unsafe sexual practices were responsible for most morbidity and premature mortality.

Although medicine and public health diverged through much of the twentieth century, changes in clinical and public health practice and financing led medicine and public health to form a new alliance in the mid-1900s. Today, the AMA provides leadership to organized medicine in public health areas such as preventive services for adolescents; tobacco control; prevention of alcohol use among youth; special care of the elderly—including health literacy; organ donation; training in end-of-life care; and both domestic and youth violence prevention. Together, the AMA and the APHA chair the Medicine/Public Health Initiative, a national program that uses the power of collaboration to improve health.

Structurally, the AMA functions as a federation. Representatives from medical societies in all states and many counties, from medical specialty organizations, and from federal health organizations (including branches of the military) comprise the AMA House of Delegates. The HOD reviews resolutions from these member organizations, decides on policy for the AMA, and provides direction for AMA programmatic efforts. Thus, the AMA both represents and is responsive to the "house of medicine." Because of this relationship, the AMA works to build consensus among both medical societies and specialty societies as it promotes its public health agenda. With almost 300,000 members, the AMA maintains a stewardship for ensuring both the standards of the profession and for promoting the health of the nation.

Okay, here's the abstract:

Vol. 64 No. 7, July 2007
Original Contribution

Pooled Analysis of Tobacco Use and Risk of Parkinson Disease

Beate Ritz, MD, PhD; Alberto Ascherio, MD, DrPH; Harvey Checkoway, PhD; Karen S. Marder, MD, MPH; Lorene M. Nelson, PhD; Walter A. Rocca, MD, MPH; G. Webster Ross, MD; Daniel Strickland, PhD; Stephen K. Van Den Eeden, PhD; Jay Gorell, MD

Arch Neurol. 2007;64:990-997.

Context  Epidemiologic studies have reported that cigarette smoking is inversely associated with Parkinson disease (PD). However, questions remain regarding the effect of age at smoking onset, time since quitting, and race/ethnicity that have not been addressed due to sample size constraints. This comprehensive assessment of the apparent reduced risk of PD associated with smoking may provide important leads for treatment and prevention.

Objective  To determine whether race/ethnicity, sex, education, age at diagnosis, and type of tobacco modify the observed effects of smoking on PD.

Design, Setting, and Participants  We conducted the first ever pooled analysis of PD combining individual-level data from 8 US case-control and 3 cohort studies (Nurses' Health Study, Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, and Honolulu-Asia Aging Study) conducted between 1960 and 2004. Case-control studies provided data for 2328 PD cases and 4113 controls matched by age, sex, and ethnicity; cohort studies contributed 488 cases and 4880 controls selected from age- and sex-matched risk sets.

Main Outcome Measure  Incident PD.

Results  We confirmed inverse associations between PD and smoking and found these to be generally stronger in current compared with former smokers; the associations were stronger in cohort than in case-control studies. We observed inverse trends with pack-years smoked at every age at onset except the very elderly (>75 years of age), and the reduction of risk lessened with years since quitting smoking. The risk reductions we observed for white and Asian patients were not seen in Hispanic and African American patients. We also found an inverse association both for smoking cigars and/or pipes and for chewing tobacco in male subjects.

Conclusions  Our data support a dose-dependent reduction of PD risk associated with cigarette smoking and potentially with other types of tobacco use. Importantly, effects seemed not to be influenced by sex or education. Differences observed by race and age at diagnosis warrant further study.

Author Affiliations: Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, School of Public Health, Los Angeles (Dr Ritz); Department of Neurology, University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine, Los Angeles (Dr Ritz); Departments of Nutrition and Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts (Dr Ascherio); Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle (Dr Checkoway); Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center, Taub Institute, and Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York (Dr Marder); Division of Epidemiology, Department of Health Research and Policy, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, California (Dr Nelson); Division of Epidemiology, Department of Health Sciences Research, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota (Dr Rocca); Veterans Affairs Pacific Islands Health Care System, Pacific Health Research Institute, Honolulu, Hawaii (Dr Ross); Research and Evaluation, Kaiser Permanente, Southern California, Pasadena (Dr Strickland); Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, California (Dr Van Den Eeden); and Department of Neurology, Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, Michigan (Dr Gorell).
Deceased.

Thoughts? Comments?

A related topic may be Smoking lowers Parkinson's disease risk (5/21/07)

Take care.

[NosLibertes]

This topic is very interesting.

We investigate since 10 months about tobacco ans I think this video should interest some of you (sorry it's in franch right now) :

http://www.noslibert...sur-le-Cancer-I

Cheers

[NeuroGuy]

Any update on this?

[Yearningforyears]

maybe they all died before reaching the typical age of parkinson onset

[tjcbs]

Wow, this guy (nightlight/infinitethought are painfully obviously the same person) is a true crank.

[Ben]

maybe they all died before reaching the typical age of parkinson onset

Perhaps it was the nicotine alone which hasn't any of the 1000's of carcinogens contained within every smelly puff.

[nightlight]

Wow, this guy (nightlight/infinitethought are painfully obviously the same person) is a true crank.

There is a new thread "Smoking is good for you" with over 450 posts and you can go check it to see how did your "... is a true crank" theory work out (and no, that wasn't the same guy as already noted by other members here; it should be pretty obvious, anyway). It turns out, after all was said and done, and after everyone presented their best arguments and papers, that tobacco smoke is much better than even the farthest claims in this thread. Below are few highlights of the "debate" (since all the hard science was squarely on one side, while the other side could only offer junk science, it was hardly a debate). Before jumping in with your "scientific proof" please check what was discusssed already (add your "proof" there since this thread has been inactive for years).


1. Dogs exposed to radon or radon+smoke: 5% of smoking dogs and 37% of non-smoking dogs got lung cancers.

2. Massive National Cancer Institute sponsored experiments that backfired terribly, setting back the NCI's workplace smoking bans agenda for over decade.

3. The crowning experiments (2004, 2005) of six decades of antismoking "science", the pinnacle -- again backfired badly, as they always do -- at the end, more than twice as many smoking animals alive than non-smoking ones.

4. Self-medication with tobacco

5. Common genes for lung cancer & smoking

6. Hazards of quitting (triggers lung cancers in animal experiments)

7. Emphysema/COPD - smoking protective rather than cause

8. How does antismoking "science" lie with stats (how to "prove" that -- Prozac causes depression -- using method of antismoking "science")

9. Heart attacks from SHS myths (is a 'friend saying Boo' more hazardous for your heart than SHS?)

10. Glycotoxins/AGE in tobacco smoke -- backfires

11. Smoking vs Caloric Restrictions, Smoking protects against cancers

12. More on anti-carcinogenicity of tobacco smoke

13. ** why take a chance

14. Smoking and diabetes, insulin sensitivity -- another "proof" backfires

15. How to prove that 'Lifting weights is harmful for muscles' - pinhole vision sleight of hand of antismoking "science" illustrated

16. Oxidative stress, breast cancer, "randomizing non-randomized variables" sleight of hand -- more antismoking junk science claims turned upside-down by facts hard science

17. Can one replicate the health benefits of tobacco smoke (the short list given) using supplements and pharmaceuticals? Even if it were possible, can one do it for < $1 day (cost for a pack of roll-your-own cigarettes with natural, additive free tobacco)?

18. Who knows more about biochemistry of life and its molecular engineering -- one little cell in your little toe or all the biochemists and molecular biologists in the world taken together? Is "Sickness Industry" good for your health?

[Destiny's Equation]

contaminants in commercial cigarettes

Ancedotal evidence: Whenever anyone lights up a traditional cigarette and I am unable to run away fast enough, my airway closes up. When my friend smokes homegrown tobacco I can sit with him, with no ill effects.

Edited by Destiny's Equation, 06 May 2011 - 09:14 PM.

[DAMI]

Like I said, I don't agree with your view of the study and its consequences. Here are a few more links that were noteworthy that I looked at during our discussion, if you were interested. ...

Skimmed over the suggested papers. Nothing of substance new in any of them that wasn't pointed out and debunked in the previous post or in the F344 'cancer rats' critique, lung cancer post1 and post2. The only impression their futile 'best shots' leave is 'whoa, tobacco smoking is even better for you than I thought before'.

Nightlight, how do you explain the fact that non-smoking wives of smokers have a higher risk of lung cancer?
http://www.bmj.com/c...nt/282/6259/183

Also note that this study was done in Japan, where anti-smoking propaganda is less prevalent(especially considering that the paper is from 1981)

[nightlight]

Nightlight, how do you explain the fact that non-smoking wives of smokers have a higher risk of lung cancer?
http://www.bmj.com/c...nt/282/6259/183
Also note that this study was done in Japan, where anti-smoking propaganda is less prevalent(especially considering that the paper is from 1981)

This is ancient paper in an ancient thread. Anyway, that Hirayama's "research" was irreproducable and his main claims were based on arithmetic errors. If this "research" was about anything else, it would have been classified as a scientific fraud, but since it is antismoking "science" it is merely quietly forgotten after the initial media splash of scare mongering.

Further, considering that tobacco smoke strongly upregulates the main detox and antioxidant enzymes in human body (glutathione by 80%, near doubling of catalase & SOD), smoking is a statistical marker for environmental or work exposures to industrial toxins, including carcinogens, since people who benefit more from the doubled detox rates would be those more exposed or more sensitive to such toxins. Since familiy members will often share the same living conditions and other exposures (especially in "agricultural families" as claimed in the paper, where work & home are often the same place), their health problems will be result of these exposures.

This is similar effect to observing that wives and children of men who use sun hats, will have more sunburns than wives and children of those who don't wear sun hats. There will be also proper dose response relations -- the more days of year the men wear sun hats, the greater rates & severity of subnurns would be observed among the family members, as well as the men themselves. Wearing of sun hats is merely a statistical proxy for sun exposure, not a cause of sunburns, for the same reason smoking is a good proxy for general unhealthy living conditions -- the protective role in both cases.

Note also that if there was an increased social pressure & taxation aiming to suppress wearing of sun hats, the above associations would grow stronger since those who would persist wearing the hats despite the increased costs, would be the poor folks who absolutely have to wear them, those living and working in the most sun scorched regions, while those who would quit wearing them probably didn't need them very much. Similar amplifying effects of the suppression of protective factors on correlations is noticable with smoking as well, i.e. today smoking is associated with "smoking related diseases" and variety of other problems much more strongly than in 1950s.

Hence, antismoking is not merely a corrupt science or money making scam, both of which it is, but a social malignancy, an evil of higher order which can't help itself but spread and eventually everyone will get a turn at being abused and maltreated as smokers are today.

Edited by nightlight, 17 April 2013 - 11:30 PM.