61 replies to this topic

[Snapple]

The best at what, breeding mensa members?

Wow, that is harsh... Do you make fun of all unfortunate couples whom have children with Down's Syndrome? What an immature statement.


I meant she is the best as in the best of all the candidates: McCain, Obama, Biden...

Yeah, boy she is great.

So bright and up on the issues, too.

Any chance that corrupt little airhead plans on taking any further questions from the media, or did she humiliate herself enough with just the one interview?

Edited by Snapple, 17 September 2008 - 02:20 AM.

[bgwithadd]

The best at what, breeding mensa members?

Wow, that is harsh... Do you make fun of all unfortunate couples whom have children with Down's Syndrome? What an immature statement.


I meant she is the best as in the best of all the candidates: McCain, Obama, Biden...

I'm not above it. She's a white trash hillbilly simpleton with a family full of mouthbreathers who isn't fit to run a mc donald's or even her own family. It's astounding to me anyone can be a fan of hers, especially someone hanging out at a nootropics forum.

Regardless of your politics, I find it hard to believe anyone could think she is remotely competent or intelligent. The last thing we need is President Soccer Mom in office if Captain President kicks the bucket in the next few years. Mc Cain is also from a nothing state, but at least he is reasonably intelligent though he seems to be less and less consistent (ie lying more and more) as time goes on, butat least he's not Palin, I guess.

[nightlight]

nightlight, you are the devil, are you not? just when i was ready to give up all that smoke again, you wanna come and make me feel all good about it???

Before you get suckered into self-destruction again, you might wish to check couple recent papers. The first one is "Are lung cancers triggered by stopping smoking?" ([Med Hypothesis 2007 69(3):711-2] pdf link is there) hypothesizing on mechanisms behind the "strange" phenomenon (known among experts, but which your doc or media won't talk about) of surprisingly large proportion of smokers getting lung cancers shortly after quitting smoking.

The second paper is even more telling, despite its less dramatic title "Carcinogenicity studies of inhaled cigarette smoke in laboratory animals: old and new [Carcinogenesis 2005 26(9):1488-1492; pdf is there]. It is a survey of decades of futile attempts to induce lung cancer in lab animals via inhalation of tobacco smoke by the leading expert in the field Dr. S.S. Hecht (odd synchronicity of the initials, considering that the originator of the present "scientific" antismoking wave was certain German chancellor from 1930s). Now this survey is six decades into this enterprise, with thousands of failed experiments, irreproducable frauds and countless research billions on its trail. No matter how heavy smoke animals inhaled, right up to the edge of asphyxiation, or how unnatural the exposure (e.g. lacking natural feedbacks in dosing and pacing of human smokers), the smoking animals still live longer than the controls inhaling the purest Hepa filtered air one could have. These little stubborn facts "complicate the interpretation of data" Dr. S.S.H. euphemistically explains.

So what is the most promising 'discovery' in this field after all that effort? Well, the less promising of the two 'discoveries' is to spike smoke with radioactive 'tracers' (for measurement purposes, allegedly, yet he warns the researchers on being careful when handling the 'glow in the dark' "contaminated pelts"). But the real recent breakthrough is the "recovery period", where animals are made to smoke heavily until about middle age, then the smoke exposure is halted completely for the rest of the experiment. The smoking animals, which were slimmer, quicker and healthier until then, get fat, lazy and sickly. If the quitting is point is picked just right, the damages from the "recovery period" will undo all the effects that "complicate the interpretation of data". But to make absolutely sure that there are no surprises from the evil weed, the "post recovery" smoking animals and the controls should be sacrificed before their natural lifespan, then one can eyeball and count the lesions and other physiological changes in the hand picked areas and freely make up scary stories, woven from made up "scientific" words and cherry picked criteria, "scientifically proving" all those horrible damages from "smoking".

So, there you have it -- they are telling you and for all pracitcal purposes forcing you (via unprecedented discrimination, extortion and maltreatment not seen in the West since 1930s, when certain other folks had to wear yellow stars, hide and be ashamed of themselves) to quit, knowing perfectly well that if you quit you will greatly damage your health and shorten your life. Of course, those paying these "scientists" for their services (the pharma and the rest of the 'sickness industry') will make a nice chunk of change on treating all the duped smokers from all the damages of this "recovery" period. The tens of billions made on smoking cessation "therapies" and extra antidepressant sales to former smokers alone, will easily make for the puny few billion they invest annually in antismoking "science" (such as that of Dr. S.S.H.), "grass roots" antismoking loudmouth groups, bribes to politicians, regulators and media to get the bans (and most recently the toxic "Fire Safe Cigarettes") passed. So, if you really feel generous and noble, do quit again to help good Dr. S.S.H., his pals and his bosses make few bucks from treating you. They've all got to pay for their kids' colleges, too.

i can appreciate all the hard science and whatnot you bring, but why do i (and most smokers i know) feel so bad when they smoke, in other words lethargy, paleness and greyness of skin, impaired breathing, immune-issues ect.

Considering that you have smoked (at least recently) pure tobacco and hand made cigarettes, the most likely explanation of your problems is "witch doctor effect". Being civilized and scientifically educated person, you may believe yourself immune to such primitive effect (which can kill only some supersitious savages). In fact, you are likely as awed by the "science" of Dr. S.S.H. and other modern medicine men as any naked savage ever was by the "powers" and knowledge of his medicine men. The chronic stress of believing deeply, as you seem to do, that each puff is peeling away your life force, killing you bit by bit, is doing the same kind of damage that kills some savage after his medicine man points a monkey bone at him, shakes it, telling him he will die (unless he submits and pays up to lift the death curse, which is roughly what our medicine men are doing to smokers). Our medicine men use more modern props, but the physiology behind the effectiveness of such 'death curse' is exactly the same for you as it is for the any 'naked savage'. In fact, this deadly effect in modern settings has been quantified on none other than smokers and the 'death curse' upon them:

There was a study in Heidelberg, described by Professor Eysenck in Psychological Reports (1989) in which 528 men were asked whether they, as smokers, were convinced that they would be very likely to develop lung cancer, heart disease, or other 'smoking related diseases'.

The 72 who answered 'yes', while admitting that their views were taken from information in the media, had an almost three times higher death rate at the end of 13 years than those who were not so influenced.

Fear can kill. This has been known since disease was first studied. We are entitled to wonder how many people have been killed more by the fear of 'smoking related diseases' than by any actual disease itself. (from a book "Murder a Cigarette: the Smoking Debate" by J. Hatton, R. Harris)

On the other hand, if you follow up the actual facts of hard science rather than second and third hand stories told about them (by those making good bucks out of scaring you), you can shake of the spell and finally enjoy all the health and life-extending benefits of this 'most precious gift of gods'. And if/when the fear strikes again, just recall the graph depicting the results of the large NCI sponsored series of experiments (graphs, discussion & link to papers here) and imagine the astonished faces of the NCI committe members when they saw it (somehow that cracks me up any time I imagine it). With the death curse lifted, you can enjoy every puff the way you would enjoy tasty bluberries as you pick and eat one by one in your organic garden, realizing that each puff of this ancient youth elixir is extending your life by about that same duration in healthy, joyful moments.

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[nightlight]

On the other hand upregulation is generally a response to a negative stimulus just as downregulation is a response to positive stimulus, and upregulation due to carbon monoxide is hardly something that would get me excited over positive benefits.

Carbon monoxide at very low concentrations acts as a signaling molecule quite beneficial in stimulating angiogenesis, tissue oxygenation, inhibiting apoptosis...

The links you provide also have a lot of logic errors. They compare the 'inhaling' people to the 'noninhaling' as if this is comparing smokers to nonsmokers and that is a wild methodology error.

You surely picked the right guy to accuse of making logical errors. The 'inhaler anomaly' was pointed out by none other than the famous british mathematician, founder of modern scientific statistics, Sir Ronald A. FIsher. The quotes in the critique you commented on are from this Fisher's paper (pdf). That's like accusing St. Paul and St. Peter of misunderstanding christianity.

Then they state that the surveys against smoking are flawed due to a 'convenience sample', but this is not really the case. Everyone is identified as either smoker or nonsmoker and with that large of a sample size you can be assured that if the people are not identifying themselves as smokers properly (!!!) the error will average out. I mean, this is a sample of tens of thousands, and there are only two groups...smokers and nonsmokers. You can't compare that to a study where there are hundreds of demographic groups that matter and a tiny sample size like the dewey versus truman survey. Now, if doctors were different than nondoctors in their biology it might make a difference and make it constitute a convenience sample, but this is not likely to be the case. IE, it's very unlikely that it's bad for doctors to smoke but good for everyone else.

You don't appreciate the distinction between statistical correlation on randomized subjects (such as those used in drug trials) and self-selected subjects, such as being a smoker, never-smoker or ex-smoker are in all antismoking statistics (see here for explanation of its relevance). In any case, the critique of the leaps of logic in antismoking junk science is merely one aspect of my argument.

Much more important aspect is the hard experimental science of which you don't here much from antismoking "scientists" since the data there goes always the "wrong" way, demonstrating firmly the potent life-extending and neuroprotective effects of this ancient miracle medicine. As you can discover if you check papers linked here, the smoking test animals live longer, stay thinner, perform better on cognitive tests, tolerate stress and hardship better, accumulate less of environmental toxins (due to near doubling of glutathione, SOD and catalase).... than the non-smoking controls. That's the net effect of lifelong inhalation of tobacco smoke, even at doses several times greater than what humans smoke and in much less favorable conditions (whole body exposure, no breaks, no feedback to control dosing and pacing) than human smoking, observed over the last six decades on variety of test animals and co-exposures.

Edited by nightlight, 17 September 2008 - 05:16 AM.

[nightlight]

Removed dupe post...

Edited by nightlight, 17 September 2008 - 05:32 AM.

[drunkfunk]

Considering that you have smoked (at least recently) pure tobacco and hand made cigarettes, the most likely explanation of your problems is "witch doctor effect". Being civilized and scientifically educated person, you may believe yourself immune to such primitive effect (which can kill only some supersitious savages). In fact, you are likely as awed by the "science" of Dr. S.S.H. and other modern medicine men as any naked savage ever was by the "powers" and knowledge of his medicine men. The chronic stress of believing deeply, as you seem to do, that each puff is peeling away your life force, killing you bit by bit, is doing the same kind of damage that kills some savage after his medicine man points a monkey bone at him, shakes it, telling him he will die (unless he submits and pays up to lift the death curse, which is roughly what our medicine men are doing to smokers). Our medicine men use more modern props, but the physiology behind the effectiveness of such 'death curse' is exactly the same for you as it is for the any 'naked savage'. In fact, this deadly effect in modern settings has been quantified on none other than smokers and the 'death curse' upon them:

There was a study in Heidelberg, described by Professor Eysenck in Psychological Reports (1989) in which 528 men were asked whether they, as smokers, were convinced that they would be very likely to develop lung cancer, heart disease, or other 'smoking related diseases'.

The 72 who answered 'yes', while admitting that their views were taken from information in the media, had an almost three times higher death rate at the end of 13 years than those who were not so influenced.

Fear can kill. This has been known since disease was first studied. We are entitled to wonder how many people have been killed more by the fear of 'smoking related diseases' than by any actual disease itself. (from a book "Murder a Cigarette: the Smoking Debate" by J. Hatton, R. Harris)

On the other hand, if you follow up the actual facts of hard science rather than second and third hand stories told about them (by those making good bucks out of scaring you), you can shake of the spell and finally enjoy all the health and life-extending benefits of this 'most precious gift of gods'. And if/when the fear strikes again, just recall the graph depicting the results of the large NCI sponsored series of experiments (graphs, discussion & link to papers here) and imagine the astonished faces of the NCI committe members when they saw it (somehow that cracks me up any time I imagine it). With the death curse lifted, you can enjoy every puff the way you would enjoy tasty bluberries as you pick and eat one by one in your organic garden, realizing that each puff of this ancient youth elixir is extending your life by about that same duration in healthy, joyful moments.

so you're saying, we were all just bamboozled by fear to have coughing-extravaganzas, lung-pains and all the other goodies?
see, i just knew there was some voodoo involved.

but at any rate, i still rather trust what my body is telling me, rather than any hard or soft-science, too much paperwork.
as a vocalist the real reason i wanna quit is that my voice is so much more flexible when not smoking, its ridiculous, like night and day.
and all the dark-brown mucous-cough ups disappear too, like true magic!

then again, maybe it's just my fear of not having to depend on tabacco, that produces such symptoms. the fear of not having to run to the gas-station at 3 in the morning, cuz i ran out of tabacco and can't sleep til i get another hit. the fear of being cool, sexy and intellectual without having to reach for my spirits and an ocb.
yea, maybe. after all, freedom always comes with a pricetag attached.

[JLL]

Dr. S.S. Hecht (odd synchronicity of the initials, considering that the originator of the present "scientific" antismoking wave was certain German chancellor from 1930s).

Also a funny coincidence that this study starts from page 1488...

[nightlight]

but at any rate, i still rather trust what my body is telling me, rather than any hard or soft-science, too much paperwork.

Since you do seem to live in a religious-like awe for the pronouncements of the pharma salesmen (they play doctors), perhaps you should quit and take all the benefits of positive placebo, which ought to have quite a strong effect on you as well. Last time I went to a doc was about dozen years ago, to get a prescription for a nicotine inhaler. Back then I was stil immersed into the antismoking matrix and was considering quitting (under pressures from my wife, friends, even my parents, both medical doctors). Shortly after that I started researching the original literature to verify the claims and was shocked to find that smoking animals live substantilly longer and despite all the reserach efforts for last five decades, the antismoking "scientists" were still struggling with that hurdle. Once the spell was broken, I found countless other facts of hard science, all unwaveringly pointing to the same conclusions -- a) antismoking "science" is a complete fraud and b) smoking is not just good for you, but this ancient medicine is the most potent youth elixir and neuroprotector humans have ever known.

as a vocalist the real reason i wanna quit is that my voice is so much more flexible when not smoking, its ridiculous, like night and day.
and all the dark-brown mucous-cough ups disappear too, like true magic!

Tobacco smoke does indeed change numerous physiological and biochemical parameters. The net effects of these changes are longer life, lower weight, better cognitive performance, delayed mental and sexual decline, better resistance to stress and hardships of any kind, higher tolerance to pain,... The upregulation of vascular and epithelial growth factors by nicotine, along with syngergistic vasodilating and vascularization stimulating effects of low dose CO and NO, will thicken your vocal chords and give you deeper, huskier voice. Many singers, actors and politicians (Obama's voice) find such effect on their voice beneficial, although it is conceivable that it could have downsides in some circumstances e.g. if you're emo artist or auditioning for a pee-wee or whiny style role.

In any case, due to those changes in biochemistry, smokers do have different nutritional requirements than non-smokers. Among others, the dramatic upregulation of internal antioxidants and detox enzymes (e.g. near doubling of glutathione, SOD and catalase) combined with lower appetite requires that you increase vitamin C and E plus selenium, zinc, magnesium and milk thistle. Coffe (freshly ground, or even better, freshly roasted & ground organic coffee) and cocoa are also quite synergistic with smoking. The upregulation of neural growth factor, key neurotransmitters (acetylcholine, dopamine, norepinephrine) and brain vascularization by various components of tobacco smoke (which are largely unknown) also requires more EFAs (best to get them from fish and nuts). A wine or beer in the evening is also beneficial (to amplify the parasympathetic swing and help unwind from the sympathetic & cholinergic dominance of the active daytime).

then again, maybe it's just my fear of not having to depend on tabacco, that produces such symptoms. the fear of not having to run to the gas-station at 3 in the morning, cuz i ran out of tabacco and can't sleep til i get another hit. the fear of being cool, sexy and intellectual without having to reach for my spirits and an ocb. yea, maybe. after all, freedom always comes with a pricetag attached.

Ever since unhooking myself from the antismoking matrix, I had no "symptoms" at all. At that time I did also switch to plain additive free tobacco (Natural American Spirit), hand made filterless cigarettes. Before that I would have a couple coughs right after getting up in the morning (nothing scary or heavy, probably to get the filter fibers and chemical additives out). While my wife and kids get few colds every year, to their amazement I am always the one spared the misery (my wife used to smoke like chimney while we were both physics grad students, but she quit shortly after that).

[nightlight]

Dr. S.S. Hecht (odd synchronicity of the initials, considering that the originator of the present "scientific" antismoking wave was certain German chancellor from 1930s).

Also a funny coincidence that this study starts from page 1488...

Hey there, you better watch out, or everyone will know what kind of sites you're visiting. Amazing perceptivness, though.

The ending page number, 1492 contains yet another pair of synchronicities, considering the subject is tobacco and the objective of Dr. S.S.H. and his pharma sponsors is to end its use. While the starting page number hails the German chancellor who started this "scientific" antismoking wave. What's going on here?

Edited by nightlight, 17 September 2008 - 05:45 PM.

[lunarsolarpower]

nightlight, you are the devil, are you not? just when i was ready to give up all that smoke again, you wanna come and make me feel all good about it???
great.

i can appreciate all the hard science and whatnot you bring, but why do i (and most smokers i know) feel so bad when they smoke, in other words lethargy, paleness and greyness of skin, impaired breathing, immune-issues ect.

sorry for hijackin, but can somebody call the exorsist or ghostbusters or something, please?

It was good to see some reality breaking through in this thread. Nightlight's posts remind me of the (quite impressive) speech I gave when in speech class on how sleeping is an addiction that is inflicted on newborns by heavy societal pressures that goes on to plague people throughout their lives and has withdrawal effects so strong that attempting to break free will kill you. The only thing is, I don't think nightlight only spent a week or two putting his reality warping spiel together. I think he has had an eye out for supporting factoids for a long time while practicing his "voodoo" counter claims to discount any hints of reality that might present confounding evidence.

[nightlight]

The only thing is, I don't think nightlight only spent a week or two putting his reality warping spiel together. I think he has had an eye out for supporting factoids for a long time while practicing his "voodoo" counter claims to discount any hints of reality that might present confounding evidence.

Well, why don't you enlighten everyone here with some "hints of reality" in the form of few facts of hard science demonstrating experimentally, say, that a lifelong inhalation of tobacco smoke reduces lifespan of smoking subjects, or harms them in any way at all. Dr. S. S. Hecht's paper is a good fairly recent survey of that field and a good starting point for few Google scholar searches (don't try this query, though, otherwise you might start smoking). So, go ahead, give it a shot. Let's see some real reality, not just the feeds of conventional wisdom from the antismoking matrix.



On the other hand, you can easily verify by checking the references at the links I gave in this thread, that there are many experiments showing exactly the opposite, the powerful life-extending effects of tobacco smoke, sponsored by none other than pharma and antismoking bureaucracies themselves.

Check for example the large series of experiments sponsored by National Cancer Institute (discussed further & linked here), which they undertook in early 1970s in order to provide scientific backing for the planned workplace smoking bans. Poor folks, they really meant well -- to show how much more damage industrial carcinogens and toxins will do when coupled with tobacco smoke. For test animals, they picked Syrian Golden Hamsters, known previously to be particularly sensitive to tobacco smoke. Everything else was done just right, too, the heavy exposure at near asphyxiating smoke concentrations, no natural feedbacks to control dosing and pacing, Hepa filtered air for non-smoking controls, biochemically highly damaging once a week quit-for-day "recovery" periods,... Just imagine the faces of the NCI committee members when the results of their pricy investment for this massive series of experiments came back (from the final report p.40, pdf):

With the exception of the two asbestos-exposed groups (Groups 5 and 6), the groups exposed to cigarette smoke lived significantly (p<0.05) longer than their sham-smoke-exposed cohorts. The hamsters exposed to asbestos plus cigarette smoke also outlived their sham-smoke-exposed cohorts; however the difference was not statistically significant. Asbestos decreased the lifespan of the asbestos-exposed groups and thereby masked, to a degree, the difference in the survival between the smoke-exposed animals and their sham-smoke-exposed cohorts which is so readily apparent in other groups (Figure 23).

and while they watched the slides from the report, like this one showing survival and weight differences:

Edited by nightlight, 17 September 2008 - 07:57 PM.

[drunkfunk]

Since you do seem to live in a religious-like awe for the pronouncements of the pharma salesmen (they play doctors), perhaps you should quit and take all the benefits of positive placebo, which ought to have quite a strong effect on you as well. Last time I went to a doc was about dozen years ago, to get a prescription for a nicotine inhaler. Back then I was stil immersed into the antismoking matrix and was considering quitting (under pressures from my wife, friends, even my parents, both medical doctors). Shortly after that I started researching the original literature to verify the claims and was shocked to find that smoking animals live substantilly longer and despite all the reserach efforts for last five decades, the antismoking "scientists" were still struggling with that hurdle. Once the spell was broken, I found countless other facts of hard science, all unwaveringly pointing to the same conclusions -- a) antismoking "science" is a complete fraud and b) smoking is not just good for you, but this ancient medicine is the most potent youth elixir and neuroprotector humans have ever known.

Tobacco smoke does indeed change numerous physiological and biochemical parameters. The net effects of these changes are longer life, lower weight, better cognitive performance, delayed mental and sexual decline, better resistance to stress and hardships of any kind, higher tolerance to pain,... The upregulation of vascular and epithelial growth factors by nicotine, along with syngergistic vasodilating and vascularization stimulating effects of low dose CO and NO, will thicken your vocal chords and give you deeper, huskier voice. Many singers, actors and politicians (Obama's voice) find such effect on their voice beneficial, although it is conceivable that it could have downsides in some circumstances e.g. if you're emo artist or auditioning for a pee-wee or whiny style role.

In any case, due to those changes in biochemistry, smokers do have different nutritional requirements than non-smokers. Among others, the dramatic upregulation of internal antioxidants and detox enzymes (e.g. near doubling of glutathione, SOD and catalase) combined with lower appetite requires that you increase vitamin C and E plus selenium, zinc, magnesium and milk thistle. Coffe (freshly ground, or even better, freshly roasted & ground organic coffee) and cocoa are also quite synergistic with smoking. The upregulation of neural growth factor, key neurotransmitters (acetylcholine, dopamine, norepinephrine) and brain vascularization by various components of tobacco smoke (which are largely unknown) also requires more EFAs (best to get them from fish and nuts). A wine or beer in the evening is also beneficial (to amplify the parasympathetic swing and help unwind from the sympathetic & cholinergic dominance of the active daytime).

Ever since unhooking myself from the antismoking matrix, I had no "symptoms" at all. At that time I did also switch to plain additive free tobacco (Natural American Spirit), hand made filterless cigarettes. Before that I would have a couple coughs right after getting up in the morning (nothing scary or heavy, probably to get the filter fibers and chemical additives out). While my wife and kids get few colds every year, to their amazement I am always the one spared the misery (my wife used to smoke like chimney while we were both physics grad students, but she quit shortly after that).

dear nightlight, i'm in awe for God, Love and this beautifully complexe universe we live in, and no, i don't need religion for that. or big pharma.
and when my body is telling me something, i'd like to think that i can trust that, more than a doctor or some studies, that have been done. so placebo or not, in the end it's about what works and what doesn't.
if you have convinced yourself enough that this smoking-thing works for you, then please go head and smoke that love, every last leaf off this planet if you must, but trying to convince somebody, who's lookin for some nootropic-help to take up smoking is a lil silly, don't you think (specially since there's so many smokefree nicotine-devices available)

on a side-note, my uncle just quit smoking 2 months ago (heavy smoker for 35 years, no filter) and we talked last week, he told me, how freaking good, healthy and full of energy he felt and he said, he didn't even gain 2 pounds. ha.
can't wait to tell him: welcome to placebo-world, watch out for that lung-cancer now.

Edited by drunkfunk, 17 September 2008 - 09:12 PM.

[brotherx]

Hi nightlight,

may I ask what you are doing for living - what is your job?

Cheers

Alex

The only thing is, I don't think nightlight only spent a week or two putting his reality warping spiel together. I think he has had an eye out for supporting factoids for a long time while practicing his "voodoo" counter claims to discount any hints of reality that might present confounding evidence.

Well, why don't you enlighten everyone here with some "hints of reality" in the form of few facts of hard science demonstrating experimentally, say, that a lifelong inhalation of tobacco smoke reduces lifespan of smoking subjects, or harms them in any way at all. Dr. S. S. Hecht's paper is a good fairly recent survey of that field and a good starting point for few Google scholar searches (don't try this query, though, otherwise you might start smoking). So, go ahead, give it a shot. Let's see some real reality, not just the feeds of conventional wisdom from the antismoking matrix.



On the other hand, you can easily verify by checking the references at the links I gave in this thread, that there are many experiments showing exactly the opposite, the powerful life-extending effects of tobacco smoke, sponsored by none other than pharma and antismoking bureaucracies themselves.

Check for example the large series of experiments sponsored by National Cancer Institute (discussed further & linked here), which they undertook in early 1970s in order to provide scientific backing for the planned workplace smoking bans. Poor folks, they really meant well -- to show how much more damage industrial carcinogens and toxins will do when coupled with tobacco smoke. For test animals, they picked Syrian Golden Hamsters, known previously to be particularly sensitive to tobacco smoke. Everything else was done just right, too, the heavy exposure at near asphyxiating smoke concentrations, no natural feedbacks to control dosing and pacing, Hepa filtered air for non-smoking controls, biochemically highly damaging once a week quit-for-day "recovery" periods,... Just imagine the faces of the NCI committee members when the results of their pricy investment for this massive series of experiments came back (from the final report p.40, pdf):

With the exception of the two asbestos-exposed groups (Groups 5 and 6), the groups exposed to cigarette smoke lived significantly (p<0.05) longer than their sham-smoke-exposed cohorts. The hamsters exposed to asbestos plus cigarette smoke also outlived their sham-smoke-exposed cohorts; however the difference was not statistically significant. Asbestos decreased the lifespan of the asbestos-exposed groups and thereby masked, to a degree, the difference in the survival between the smoke-exposed animals and their sham-smoke-exposed cohorts which is so readily apparent in other groups (Figure 23).

and while they watched the slides from the report, like this one showing survival and weight differences:

[nightlight]

Hi nightlight, may I ask what you are doing for living - what is your job?

I work presently as a 'chief scientist' and CTO in a software company, telecommuting to work i.e. sitting all day in my study (in peaceful Lexington, MA) in front of 7 computers (multiplexed to 5 monitors) and 4 line phone (plus several iPhones & iPod touches for the latest project), puffing away, sipping coffe, nibbling walnuts... Bookshelves cover all walls and the center of the large room, about 10K+ books (mostly physics, chemistry, math, programming, chess, and few in philosophy, psychology; about 3/4 in English, 1/4 in Russian). The work part is programming (C/C++, Java, Javascript, lately Objective C), directing several other programmers (via phones & remote desktops), architecting software for the whole group, researching and developing new algorithms for compression & audio/video coding (have few patents & papers in the field of fundamental compression algorithms, coding and modeling, combinatorics). By education I am theoretical physicist (quantum field theory, foundations of quantum theory), although I left academia right after the grad school (Brown U.), when my interest in computer programming and algorithms took over. The interest in medicine and biochemistry comes from growing up with both parents medical doctors and spending lots of time during my teens in their medical library. I also play chess, mostly against computers although I do have an expert rating from human play (my younger brother is a chess master). So, if anyone is wondering, no relation with tobacco industry, other than as a consumer of their products.

[StrangeAeons]

I'm just going to put this out there:
you seem like a really, really bright guy if your description is legitimate. I mean maybe you should apply for the Prometheus society kind of bright. But your views are, well, marginal. You're clearly an eccentric, and you've found what works for you... except now you expect yourself to be superhuman. It seems as if you've been blessed with unusual focus for a good part of your life. Is it conceivable that maybe you're just slowing down or burning out? I would tell you to accept the inevitable, but obviously the Immorality Institute is... well you can connect the dots. Still, if you have unrealistic expectations for yourself, I don't expect you to go to far without decompensating-- nootropics notwithstanding. Yes, perhaps I'm letting conventional wisdom pull a fast one on me... but my simpleton's common sense says you might need to pace yourself.

[Fredrik Eich]

Nightlight,I remember that when Shirley Strong won a silver medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, she was slammed by the media for celebrating with her customary post race cigarette.One commentator remarked that she would have won gold had she not smoked!?! I was young when this happend but I remember thinking how arrogantit was of these people to assume this when they have no idea of whether her smoking had any effect or if she would have made it to the final at all - had she not smoked.But we live in an age where the image of people smoking is willfully destorted.

[Snapple]

I'm just going to put this out there:
you seem like a really, really bright guy if your description is legitimate. I mean maybe you should apply for the Prometheus society kind of bright. But your views are, well, marginal. You're clearly an eccentric, and you've found what works for you... except now you expect yourself to be superhuman. It seems as if you've been blessed with unusual focus for a good part of your life. Is it conceivable that maybe you're just slowing down or burning out? I would tell you to accept the inevitable, but obviously the Immorality Institute is... well you can connect the dots. Still, if you have unrealistic expectations for yourself, I don't expect you to go to far without decompensating-- nootropics notwithstanding. Yes, perhaps I'm letting conventional wisdom pull a fast one on me... but my simpleton's common sense says you might need to pace yourself.

Nightlight is clearly very intelligent. I'm almost sure he has a good deal more raw intellectual horsepower than I do and I find him pretty interesting.

I suspect he has some form of Asperger's Syndrome, almost certainly on the autism spectrum. All his interests and obsessions are textbook Asperger's. Perhaps a touch of OCD as well, as he's latched on to this "smoking is healthful" notion and can't let go of it.

I have no doubt that an extremely bright, numerically literate person can find sloppy mistake after sloppy mistake in the medical literature about smoking. Those researchers span a range of abilities, and even the best still have to be generalists, able to understand medicine, biology, experiment construction and statistics. There are certainly chinks in their armor to be exploited by the likes of Nightlight.

I also have precisely zero interest in taking on Nightlight on this topic. I don't care if soldiers smoke. I don't care if a handful of super-centarians smoked. I don't care if he can draw a linear path between some positive biological effect and smoking. I don't care if he's developed some elaborate conspiracy theory about pharmaceutical companies and researchers to demonize smoking.

It is a proven, iron-clad, irrefutable fact that smoking is destructive to human health. Smokers die earlier than non-smokers and suffer a range of terrible illnesses directly related to their smoking.

One extremely bright man fulminating in his home isn't overturning the overwhelming weight of proof that smoking is a health disaster.

[Ben]

bah

Edited by Ben - Aus, 18 September 2008 - 01:31 PM.

[brotherx]

Thanks for the detailed answer!
So you must be a bright guy!

Certainly - there are some paradox potential health benefits associated with smoking. See below (you mentioned most of them).
But what is with the majority of health risk associated with smoking? How do you evaluate them?

Cheers

Alex

Health benefits of smoking

Studies suggest that smoking decreases appetite, but did not conclude that overweight people should smoke or that their health would improve by smoking.[47][48]

Several types of "Smoker’s Paradoxes",[49] (cases where smoking appears to have specific beneficial effects), have been observed; often the actual mechanism remains undetermined. Risk of ulcerative colitis has been frequently shown to be reduced by smokers on a dose-dependent basis; the effect is eliminated if the individual stops smoking.[50][51] Smoking appears to interfere with development of Kaposi's sarcoma,[52] breast cancer among women carrying the very high risk BRCA gene,[53] preeclampsia,[54] and atopic disorders such as allergic asthma.[55] A plausible mechanism of action in these cases may be the nicotine in tobacco smoke acting as an anti-inflammatory agent and interfering with the disease process.[56]

Evidence suggests that non-smokers are up to twice as likely as smokers to develop Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's disease.[57] A plausible explanation for these cases may be the effect of nicotine, a cholinergic stimulant, decreasing the levels of acetylcholine in the smoker's brain; Parkinson's disease occurs when the effect of dopamine is less than that of acetylcholine. In addition, nicotine stimulates the mesolimbic dopamine pathway (as do other drugs of abuse), causing an effective increase in dopamine levels. Opponents counter by noting that consumption of pure nicotine may be as beneficial as smoking without the risks associated with smoking.

It has been hypothesized that schizophrenics smoke for self-medication.[58] Considering the high rates of physical sickness and deaths[59][60] among persons suffering from schizophrenia, one of smoking's short term benefits is its temporary effect to improve alertness and cognitive functioning in that disease.[61] It has been postulated that the mechanism of this effect is that schizophrenics have a disturbance of nicotinic receptor functioning.[62] Rates of smoking have been found to be much higher in schizophrenics.[63]

Establishing a link between smoking and health effects

As the use of tobacco became popular in Europe, a number of people became concerned about its negative effects. One of the first was King James I of Great Britain. In his 1604 treatise, A Counterblaste to Tobacco, King James observed that smoking was:

A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmfull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse.

The late-19th century invention of automated cigarette-making machinery in the American South made possible mass production of cigarettes at low cost, and cigarettes became elegant and fashionable among society men as the Victorian era gave way to the Edwardian. In 1912, American Dr. Isaac Adler was the first to strongly suggest that lung cancer is related to smoking.[7] In 1929, Fritz Lickint of Dresden, Germany, published a formal statistical evidence of a lung cancer–tobacco link, based on a study showing that lung cancer sufferers were likely to be smokers.[8] Lickint also argued that tobacco use was the best way to explain the fact that lung cancer struck men four or five times more often than women (since women smoked much less).[8]

Prior to World War I, lung cancer was considered to be a rare disease, which most physicians would never see during their career.[9][10] With the postwar rise in popularity of cigarette smoking, however, came a virtual epidemic of lung cancer.

In 1950, Richard Doll published research in the British Medical Journal showing a close link between smoking and lung cancer.[11] Four years later, in 1954 the British Doctors Study, a study of some 40 thousand doctors over 20 years, confirmed the suggestion, based on which the government issued advice that smoking and lung cancer rates were related.[12] The British Doctors Study lasted till 2001, with result published every ten years and final results published in 2004 by Doll and Richard Peto. [13] Much early research was also done by Dr. Ochsner. Reader's Digest magazine for many years published frequent anti-smoking articles. In 1964 the United States Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health (referenced below), led millions of American smokers to quit, the banning of certain advertising, and the requirement of warning labels on tobacco products.

Health risks of smoking

The main health risks in tobacco pertain to diseases of the cardiovascular system, in particular myocardial infarction (heart attack), cardiovascular disease, diseases of the respiratory tract such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), asthma,[14] emphysema, and cancer, particularly lung cancer and cancers of the larynx and tongue.

A person's increased risk of contracting disease is directly proportional to the length of time that a person continues to smoke as well as the amount smoked. However, if someone stops smoking, then these chances gradually decrease as the damage to their body is repaired. A year after quitting, the risk of contracting heart disease is half that of a continuing smoker.[15] The health risks of smoking are not uniform across all smokers. Risks vary according to amount of tobacco smoked, with those who smoke more at greater risk. Light smoking is still a health risk. Likewise, smoking "light" cigarettes does not reduce the risks.

The data regarding smoking to date focuses primarily on cigarette smoking, which increases mortality rates by 40% in those who smoke less than 10 cigarettes a day, by 70% in those who smoke 10–19 a day, by 90% in those who smoke 20–39 a day, and by 120% in those smoking two packs a day or more.[16] Pipe smoking has also been researched and found to increase the risk of various cancers by 33%.[17]

Some studies suggest that hookah smoking is considered to be safer than other forms of smoking. However, water is not effective for removing all relevant toxins, e.g. the carcinogenic aromatic hydrocarbons are not water-soluble. Several negative health effects are linked to hookah smoking and studies indicate that it is likely to be more harmful than cigarettes, due in part to the volume of smoke inhaled.[18][19] In addition to the cancer risk, there is some risk of infectious disease resulting from pipe sharing, and other risks associated with the common addition of other psychoactive drugs to the tobacco.[20]

Diseases caused by tobacco smoking are significant hazards to public health. According to the Canadian Lung Association, tobacco kills between 40,000–45,000 Canadians per year, more than the total number of deaths from AIDS, traffic accidents, suicide, murder, fires and accidental poisoning.[21][22] The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes tobacco use as "the single most important preventable risk to human health in developed countries and an important cause of premature death worldwide."

Carcinogenicity
The incidence of lung cancer is highly correlated with smoking.
An extremely carcinogenic (cancer-causing) metabolite of benzopyrene, a polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbon, produced by burning tobacco.

Smoke, or any partially burnt organic matter, is carcinogenic (cancer-causing). The damage a continuing smoker does to their lungs can take up to 20 years before its physical manifestation in lung cancer. Women began smoking later than men, so the rise in death rate amongst women did not appear until later. The male lung cancer death rate decreased in 1975 — roughly 20 years after the fall in cigarette consumption in men. A fall in consumption in women also began in 1975 but by 1991 had not manifested in a decrease in lung cancer related mortalities amongst women.[23]

Smoke contains several carcinogenic pyrolysis products that bind to DNA and cause genetic mutations. Particularly potent carcinogens are polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), which are toxicated to mutagenic epoxides. The first PAH to be identified as a carcinogen in tobacco smoke was benzopyrene, which has been shown to toxicate into an epoxide that irreversibly attaches to a cell's nuclear DNA, which may either kill the cell or cause a genetic mutation. If the mutation inhibits programmed cell death, the cell can survive to become a cancer cell. Similarly, acrolein, which is abundant in tobacco smoke, also irreversibly binds to DNA, causes mutations and thus also cancer. However, it needs no activation to become carcinogenic.[24]

The carcinogenity of tobacco smoke is not explained by nicotine per se, which is not carcinogenic or mutagenic. However, it inhibits apoptosis, therefore accelerating existing cancers.[25] Also, NNK, a nicotine derivative converted from nicotine, can be carcinogenic.

To reduce cancer risk[citation needed] but to deliver nicotine, there are tobacco products where the tobacco is not pyrolysed, but the nicotine is vaporized with solvent such as glycerol[citation needed]. However, such products have not become popular.

Lung dysfunction

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) caused by smoking, known as tobacco disease, is a permanent, incurable reduction of pulmonary capacity characterized by shortness of breath, wheezing, persistent cough with sputum, and damage to the lungs, including emphysema and chronic bronchitis[26].

Effects on the heart

Smoking contributes to the risk of developing heart disease. All smoke contains very fine particulates that are able to penetrate the alveolar wall into the blood and exert their effects on the heart in a short time.

Inhalation of tobacco smoke causes several immediate responses within the heart and blood vessels. Within one minute the heart rate begins to rise, increasing by as much as 30 percent during the first 10 minutes of smoking. Carbon monoxide in tobacco smoke exerts its negative effects by reducing the blood’s ability to carry oxygen.[27]

Smoking tends to increase blood cholesterol levels. Furthermore, the ratio of high-density lipoprotein (the “good” cholesterol) to low-density lipoprotein (the “bad” cholesterol) tends to be lower in smokers compared to non-smokers. Smoking also raises the levels of fibrinogen and increases platelet production (both involved in blood clotting) which makes the blood viscous. Carbon monoxide binds to haemoglobin (the oxygen-carrying component in red blood cells), resulting in a much stabler complex than haemoglobin bound with oxygen or carbon dioxide -- the result is permanent loss of blood cell functionality. Blood cells are naturally recycled after a certain period of time, allowing for the creation of new, functional erythrocytes. However, if carbon monoxide exposure reaches a certain point before they can be recycled, hypoxia (and later death) occurs. All these factors make smokers more at risk of developing various forms of arteriosclerosis. As the arteriosclerosis progresses, blood flows less easily through rigid and narrowed blood vessels, making the blood more likely to form a thrombosis (clot). Sudden blockage of a blood vessel may lead to an infarction (e.g. stroke). However, it is also worth noting that the effects of smoking on the heart may be more subtle. These conditions may develop gradually given the smoking-healing cycle (the human body heals itself between periods of smoking), and therefore a smoker may develop less significant disorders such as worsening or maintenance of unpleasant dermatological conditions, e.g. eczema, due to reduced blood supply. Smoking also increases blood pressure and weakens blood vessels.[28]

After a ban on smoking in all enclosed public places was introduced in Scotland in March 2006, there was a 17 percent reduction in hospital admissions for acute coronary syndrome. 67% of the decrease occurred in non-smokers.[29]


49 ^ Cohen, David J; Michel Doucet, Donald E. Cutlip, Kalon K.L. Ho, Jeffrey J. Popma, Richard E. Kuntz (2001). "Impact of Smoking on Clinical and Angiographic Restenosis After Percutaneous Coronary Intervention". Circulation 104: 773. doi:10.1161/hc3201.094225. PMID 11502701.
50^ Longmore, M., Wilkinson, I., Torok, E. Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine (Fifth Edition) p. 232
51^ Green JT, Richardson C, Marshall RW, Rhodes J, McKirdy HC, Thomas GA, Williams GT (2000-11). "Nitric oxide mediates a therapeutic effect of nicotine in ulcerative colitis". Aliment Pharmacol Ther 14 (11): 1429–1434. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2036.2000.00847.x. PMID 11069313.
52 ^ "Smoking Cuts Risk of Rare Cancer" (in English), UPI (2001-03-29).
53^ Recer Paul (May 19, 1998). "Cigarettes May Have an Up Side", AP. Retrieved on 2006-11-06.
54 ^ Lain Kristine Y, Powers Robert W, Krohn Marijane A, Ness Roberta B, Crombleholme William R, Roberts James M (November 1991). "Urinary cotinine concentration confirms the reduced risk of preeclampsia with tobacco exposure". American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 181 (5): 908–914. PMID 11422156.
55 of the epidemiological studies". Behav Brain Res 113 (1–2): 117–120. doi:10.1016/S0166-4328(00)00206-0. PMID 10942038.
56^ Kumari, Veena; Peggy Postma (2006). "Nicotine use in schizophrenia: The self medication hypotheses". Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 29 (6): 1021–1034. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2005.02.006.
57^ Seeman MV (2007 January). "An outcome measure in schizophrenia: mortality.". Can J Psychiatry. 52 (1): 55–60. PMID 17444079.
58^ Auquier P, Lancon C, Rouillon F, Lader M, Holmes C (2006 December). "Mortality in schizophrenia.". Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf 15 (12): 873–879. doi:10.1002/pds.1325. PMID 17058327.
59^ Compton, Michael T (2005). "Cigarette Smoking in Individuals with Schizophrenia". Medscape Psychiatry & Mental Health 10 (2).
60 ^ Ripoll N, Bronnec M, Bourin M (2004). "Nicotinic Receptors and Schizophrenia". Curr Med Res Opin 20 (7): 1057–1074. doi:10.1185/030079904125004060.
61^ Kelly Ciara, McCreadie Robin (2000). "Cigarette smoking and schizophrenia". Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 6 (5): 327–331. doi:10.1192/apt.6.5.327.

Hi nightlight, may I ask what you are doing for living - what is your job?

I work presently as a 'chief scientist' and CTO in a software company, telecommuting to work i.e. sitting all day in my study (in peaceful Lexington, MA) in front of 7 computers (multiplexed to 5 monitors) and 4 line phone (plus several iPhones & iPod touches for the latest project), puffing away, sipping coffe, nibbling walnuts... Bookshelves cover all walls and the center of the large room, about 10K+ books (mostly physics, chemistry, math, programming, chess, and few in philosophy, psychology; about 3/4 in English, 1/4 in Russian). The work part is programming (C/C++, Java, Javascript, lately Objective C), directing several other programmers (via phones & remote desktops), architecting software for the whole group, researching and developing new algorithms for compression & audio/video coding (have few patents & papers in the field of fundamental compression algorithms, coding and modeling, combinatorics). By education I am theoretical physicist (quantum field theory, foundations of quantum theory), although I left academia right after the grad school (Brown U.), when my interest in computer programming and algorithms took over. The interest in medicine and biochemistry comes from growing up with both parents medical doctors and spending lots of time during my teens in their medical library. I also play chess, mostly against computers although I do have an expert rating from human play (my younger brother is a chess master). So, if anyone is wondering, no relation with tobacco industry, other than as a consumer of their products.

[variance]

Only thing that would help you there would be really extended release dextroamphetamine (vyvanse/lisdexamfetamine) or the transdermal ritalin/methylphenidate (daytrana) which has a really good time release as well.

[nightlight]

Certainly - there are some paradox potential health benefits associated with smoking. See below (you mentioned most of them).

The list of benefits in the article is not only dated and skimpy, but what little is acknowledged is given as equivocations backed up by the weakest form of evidence - epidemiology (which is a mere hint for hard science to establish scientific facts). Much stronger and more numerous evidence of hard science, the stuff that matters, is entirelly ignored. The most critical fact of hard science left out is the vast experimental evidence of potent life-extending effects of tobacco smoke. That "little" effect the author chose to overlook is the net result of all other biochemical and physiological effects, the sum total of all pluses and minuses, the effect that ultimately matters the most. Ever since the NCI's disastrous experiments from 1970s mentioned earlier, that kind of hard experimental science has become a taboo in the antismoking business. Of course, restricting the positive aspects to few epidemiological tidbis, allows author to overwhelm them with negatives of the same weak, ambiguous kind (which is all they have). Therefore, the article is a typical damage control effort, relying on strawman deception and reader's ignorance, to divert and discourage the curious from pursuing the "wrong" kinds of questions.

But what is with the majority of health risk associated with smoking? How do you evaluate them?

Your question already contains the answer. Namely, you along with most of the public have been taken in by the cheap semantic sleight of hand by the public health "science" , misled to understand the term "risk" here in the informal, everyday sense (danger, hazard,...), while all that antismoking 'studies' actually show is that smoking is a "risk factor" (a deceptively named technical term) for various 'smoking related diseases'. In that technical sense of the term risk, taking heart medications is a "risk" for heart attacks, using aspirin a "risk" for headaches, wearing bra is a (huge) "risk" for breast cancer,... and all that these "risks" really mean is, that people taking heart medications will more likely suffer heart attack than those not taking them, or that those taking aspirin will more likely suffer headaches than those not taking it, or that those wearing bras are more likely to get breast cancers than those not wearing them... For example, the last one doesn't mean one should avoid wearing bras due to the danger of getting breast cancer. This type of unwarranted leaps of logic from correlation to causation, is the foundation of the antismoking "science".

To see why such leaps are unwarranted for smoking, note first that categories {smoker, never-smoker, ex-smoker} are not randomized by researchers, but rather they are self-selected (e.g. like online polls judging by which Ron Paul ought to have become Republican nominee) -- subjects become one of the three types based on factors, many of them unknown (even to subjects themselves), which are beyond researcher's control, quantification or even understanding. Positive correlations of disease D with some factor X on such "self-selected" subjects could exist whether X is a cause of D, or whether X is protective or therapeutic for real causes of D.

If one were to use common sleight of hand of antismoking "science" one could "conclude" that respirators reduce lifespan of their users, since for any age group, users of respirators will have lower life-expectancy than never-users of respirators, while the ex-users of respirators will fall in between. Or similarly, that use of statins "causes" heart attacks, since indeed, in any age group, statin users will have more heart attacks then statin non-users.

In both examples, the "conclusion" is obtained by selecting samples that ignore the reason why people use respirators or statins (due to physician's determination based on their health conditions), which in turn are based on the established beneficial health effects of respirators or statins. Hence if we observe "self-selected" (non-randomized) users and ignore the reasons for their use or the known health effects of these elements/factors, we could "conclude" that respirators shorten lifespan or that statins cause heart attacks.

Yet, the antismoking "science" ignores the role in the "self-selection" {smoker, never-smoker, ex-smoker} of the numerous scientifically established therapeutic and protective effects of tobacco smoke -- these effects are not even mentioned in the epidemiology of 'smoking related' diseases, let alone their confounding role quantified and taken into account in the self-selection and resulting correlations. They simply do not exist in the antismoking matrix. Another even greater taboo of antismoking "science" are the results of animal experiments since they outright contradict the theory that tobacco smoke causes any harm at all to smokers, by directly demonstrating that smoking substantially benefits the health and longevity of smokers (observed on variety of animals & experimental conditions).

Recalling statins & respirators examples, one could say more generally that the statistical correlation of some "risk factor" X and some 'X-related' disease D(X) on self-selected (non-randomized) classes of subjects who differ in X will exist whether X is the cause of D(X) or whether X is therapeutic or protective against D(X) or against some of the causes of D(X). The existence of correlation of X and D(X), no matter how strong, consistent, universal,... is a mere hint that:

a) X may be a cause of D(X).
b) X has protective/theraupeutic role in the causal chain leading to D(X).
c) Some other common factor Y causes X and D(X) (or increases their chances).

Normal science follows up such hints with methods of hard science (experiments, randomized intervention trials,... etc) to establish which role (a), (b) or (c) does X have in the generally complex, largely unknown (especially at the level of cellular biochemical networks) graph of causes and effects leading to D(X). The observed correlation of X and D(X) merely tells us that X and D(X) are in the same graph, but not where to place X in that graph.

Yet, the antismoking "science" after 60 years of vast research efforts, including lots of hard science (see links above on animal experiments), is still stuck in the hint phase. Even fifty years ago, in 1958, Ronald A. Fisher pointed out this very problem (pdf) of the antismoking "science" of that time:

But the time has passed, and although further investigation, in a sense, has taken place, it has consisted largely of the repetition of observations of the same kind as those which Hill and his colleagues called attention several years ago. I read a recent article to the effect that nineteen different investigations in different parts of the world had all concurred in in confirming Dr. Hill's findings. I think they had concurred, but I think they were mere repetitions of evidence of the same kind...

Half a century later, the antismoking "science" is still locked in that same statistical hint loop, which Fisher objected to in 1958. And it is not for lack of trying at using hard science to back up their theory. Numerous animal experiments were done, but they all went the "wrong" way -- smoking animals lived longer (and were better off in many other ways). Several randomized intervention trials on humans were done as well, but they only showed that randomly selected 'quit group' of smokers (those urged & helped to quit) ended up with more lung cancers than 'smoking group' (those left to smoke as they wished). The poor antismoking "scientists" had no other choice, since the hard science goes the "wrong" way, but to stick doing what "works" -- the heavily confounded statistical correlations on self-selected subjects, while keeping very quiet about hard science (the well established beneficial effects of TS, animal experiments and randomized intervention trials on humans).

Here is how the "self-medication" model, the hypothesis (b) above, gives rise to correlations of smoking & 'smoking related' diseases -- due to the boost of internal antoxidants & detox enzymes (glutathione, catalase & SOD nearly doubled), neutrophiles and anti-inflammatory effects of tobacco smoke, smoking will naturally act as a proxy for the exposures to industrial or environmental toxins (many of them carcinogens) and variety of biological pathogens, which themselves will cause 'smoking related' diseases over time. The mechanism behind correlations is of the same nature (model (b)) as the one between heart attacks and statins. Unlike statins, which produce only one beneficial effect, (lowering of LDL), tobacco smoke produces dozens. While statins are prescribed by physicians, tobacco smoking is a form of self-medication -- people continue to use tobacco, despite economic and social pressures against it, since they perceive tangible benefits (e.g. see the study of aluminum workers here and more discussion here from Dr. Siegel's blog). The animal experiments further support "self-medication" model (b) by outright contradicting the "harm" model (a), the postulate of antismoking "science".

A common question that comes up at this point: Are you saying people take up smoking to fix some medical condition they have? ... How do they know it will do anything unless they started smoking (drinking, etc.) previously and then noticed it?. Check here for the explanation of how this coupling gets established.

Edited by nightlight, 19 September 2008 - 01:13 AM.

[Rags847]

I don't need a study to tell me if smoking is good for me or not.
I smoke and I feel like shit.
'Nuff said.

And, uh... it is smoke isn't it? The natural reaction to smoke is to couch and move to fresh air. Hmm... wonder why.

Not all amphetamines are illegal, cf. ADD meds. Legal dextroamphetamine prescription does wonders when it comes to intense focus for marathon, daily study sessions.

Palin? No abortion even in the case of rape and incest. Beautiful.
Republicans can't win without dirty tricks. She wasn't selected because they felt she'd be the best person in the country to lead the nation (McCain has a 1 in 3 chance of dying in office according to actuary tables; a President Palin is a very real possibility). She was picked because she'd take the media off of Obama's historic democratic nomination speech and that is what happened. Picking Paris Hilton as your VP would have had the same effect.

Republicans can't campaign straight and without dirty tricks. They insincerely co-opt all the democrat's issues, the woman-in-office-issue and the change theme, and appeal to southern white socio-cultural issues of religion and family and anti-gay and anti-minority sentiment and will win the damn election again.

We should have let the south succeed way back when. We'd be an amazing country by now if we had.

Love how everyone stresses education and then derides Obama for going to Harvard Law School. Guiliani made me sick with his address at the RNC. Guess he didn't study for his law degree - that would have been too elitist of him.

Even if I was a Republican I would be able to admit that the Palin tactic was an insincere, opportunistic, dirty ploy.
It should be offensive to women. It is like a company being required to hire a woman for a position and then hiring an underqualified token woman, meanwhile passing over competent, qualified female candidates. Their numbers should have plummeted after McCain showed how reckless he would be with this country's well-being. That they didn't showed how broken we really are.

Edited by Rags847, 19 September 2008 - 07:42 AM.

[Zoroaster]

Nightlife:

Well I'm actually going to be going out of town tomorrow for several days but otherwise I would love to take you on on this subject Nightlife. Just to be clear, from your last post it appears you are implying that smoking may be a therapy for lung cancer and emphysema? You compare the logical leaps of anti-smoking researchers to those who would mistakenly associate bras with breast cancer etc. Surely you don't deny the correlation between lung cancer and smoking or emphysema and smoking. Emphysema didn't really exist until smoking was popularized and it is today found exclusively in smokers or those exposed to other inhaled toxins. Just recently I had the opportunity to investigate the lungs of 25 deceased individuals about a third of whom smoked. The difference is stark. Lungs of lifelong smokers have severely mutilated aveoli and tar deposits throughout the lung. Several of them were semi-collapsed and in nearly all the smokers, it was COPD or MI listed as their cause of death. Furthermore, most of these people started smoking in their teens. Now I suppose its possible that they each could have sensed the early, early, stages of emphysema at the age of 15 or so and then decided to pick up smoking because they intuitively understood that it would help treat their condition. No, actually, that's not really possible.

So really I just have a few questions. One, how do you explain the fact that only smokers get emphysema. No graphs of animal life spans, no talk of dead germans, just an answer to that question. I already read your link on the subject. The HaloScan site and it was ... unimpressive. If these people were dying from asthma I could buy it. But emphasema symptoms do not appear in one's teens and there is no correlation between asthma and COPD. One of those two things would be necessary for the argument on that website to be relevant. (Seriously please pause and evaluate that argument before responding with anything similar to it. The fact that you even thought that argument was viable has already lowered my opinion of your intellectual abilities. Are the situations they present really even remotely typical?) Furthermore, if people were picking up smoking as a therapy for emphasema symptoms then there would be at least some people with emphasema who don't smoke. Right? The correct answer is yes. But there aren't. Aside from a select few with very obvious and unusual toxin exposure. And really do you know anyone with emphasema who claims that smoking eases their symptoms? I have spoken with several people with emphasema and none of them have expressed that to me. Quite the opposite actually. So..... I'd love to hear your explination.

Also, are you aware of any large, well controlled human studies that demonstrate an increased lifespan in smokers. You've already discussed your animal subjects, but of course as we nootropics fans know, animal studies are not a guarentee of a paralell effect in humans. So, please link, if possible, some large scale human studies that demonstrate longer lifespans for smokers.

That's all for now. I will be back next week and if this subject is still going I'd love to jump in with some research to back me up.

[Fredrik Eich]

Zoroaster,

how do you explain the fact that only smokers get emphysema

There are no diseases exclusive to people who smoke. And statistical associations are only associations. For examples a "cargo cultist" might assume that umbrellas cause rain on the grounds that shortly before it rains people can be seen carrying umbrellas and they could show this to be true time and time again. But sooner or later we have to demonstrate that umbrellas cause rain – through experimentation. This important piece of evidence is missing in the field of tobacco research and consistently demonstrates that smoking causes no diseases whatsoever (both in animal and human experiments).

Just recently I had the opportunity to investigate the lungs of 25 deceased individuals about a third of whom smoked. The difference is stark

If someone were to present you with the cadavers of five never-smokers working outdoors and living in rural areas, five cadavers of never smokers occupationally exposed to particulate matter and living in urban areas. If you were asked to say how many were smokers, how confident could you be that on histological evidence alone that you would write down on paper – 10 never smokers, 0 smokers? If there is a way that you could be sure I would be really interested to know about this!!

"(Seriously please pause and evaluate that argument before responding with anything similar to it. The fact that you even thought that argument was viable has already lowered my opinion of your intellectual abilities. Are the situations they present really even remotely typical?)"

A odd request – but as it is directed at Nightlight not me ….

[drunkfunk]

Nightlife:

Well I'm actually going to be going out of town tomorrow for several days but otherwise I would love to take you on on this subject Nightlife. Just to be clear, from your last post it appears you are implying that smoking may be a therapy for lung cancer and emphysema? You compare the logical leaps of anti-smoking researchers to those who would mistakenly associate bras with breast cancer etc. Surely you don't deny the correlation between lung cancer and smoking or emphysema and smoking. Emphysema didn't really exist until smoking was popularized and it is today found exclusively in smokers or those exposed to other inhaled toxins. Just recently I had the opportunity to investigate the lungs of 25 deceased individuals about a third of whom smoked. The difference is stark. Lungs of lifelong smokers have severely mutilated aveoli and tar deposits throughout the lung. Several of them were semi-collapsed and in nearly all the smokers, it was COPD or MI listed as their cause of death. Furthermore, most of these people started smoking in their teens. Now I suppose its possible that they each could have sensed the early, early, stages of emphysema at the age of 15 or so and then decided to pick up smoking because they intuitively understood that it would help treat their condition. No, actually, that's not really possible.

So really I just have a few questions. One, how do you explain the fact that only smokers get emphysema. No graphs of animal life spans, no talk of dead germans, just an answer to that question. I already read your link on the subject. The HaloScan site and it was ... unimpressive. If these people were dying from asthma I could buy it. But emphasema symptoms do not appear in one's teens and there is no correlation between asthma and COPD. One of those two things would be necessary for the argument on that website to be relevant. (Seriously please pause and evaluate that argument before responding with anything similar to it. The fact that you even thought that argument was viable has already lowered my opinion of your intellectual abilities. Are the situations they present really even remotely typical?) Furthermore, if people were picking up smoking as a therapy for emphasema symptoms then there would be at least some people with emphasema who don't smoke. Right? The correct answer is yes. But there aren't. Aside from a select few with very obvious and unusual toxin exposure. And really do you know anyone with emphasema who claims that smoking eases their symptoms? I have spoken with several people with emphasema and none of them have expressed that to me. Quite the opposite actually. So..... I'd love to hear your explination.

Also, are you aware of any large, well controlled human studies that demonstrate an increased lifespan in smokers. You've already discussed your animal subjects, but of course as we nootropics fans know, animal studies are not a guarentee of a paralell effect in humans. So, please link, if possible, some large scale human studies that demonstrate longer lifespans for smokers.

That's all for now. I will be back next week and if this subject is still going I'd love to jump in with some research to back me up.

aaaah, the exorcist has arrived....

[nightlight]

Nightlife:

Pretty good start. The first word, and already the first sloppy mistake. (or maybe it's an attempt at some kind of emo joke)

Just to be clear, from your last post it appears you are implying that smoking may be a therapy for lung cancer and emphysema?

The very next sentence, and another dud. (Perhaps you should refrain from posting at 3:55AM; nootropics can go only so far and nature eventually wins.) I never said or implied that smoking is therapeutic for either. In fact in the very post you are responding to, I not only didn't imply anything of the sort, but suggested a mechanism (the final paragraph) directly excluding your interpretation, since that's a common strawmen argument.

You compare the logical leaps of anti-smoking researchers to those who would mistakenly associate bras with breast cancer etc. Surely you don't deny the correlation between lung cancer and smoking or emphysema and smoking.

Obviously not. In fact, the whole point of the example of bras and breast cancer correlations, which are thousands times stronger than the correlations between tobacco smoking and 'smoking related diseases' was to illustrate how correlations and causation are not synonymous, as the antismoking "science" postulates.

Emphysema didn't really exist until smoking was popularized and it is today found exclusively in smokers or those exposed to other inhaled toxins.

Although secular trends provide the weakest form of causation hints, weaker than even case-control studies, here are few interesting trends of recent decades. With trends like that, the antismoking stories will need a shot or two of botulin to keep them attractive even to those at the far left tail of the Bell curve.

Just recently I had the opportunity to investigate the lungs of 25 deceased individuals about a third of whom smoked. The difference is stark. Lungs of lifelong smokers have severely mutilated aveoli and tar deposits throughout the lung. Several of them were semi-collapsed and in nearly all the smokers, it was COPD or MI listed as their cause of death. Furthermore, most of these people started smoking in their teens. Now I suppose its possible that they each could have sensed the early, early, stages of emphysema at the age of 15 or so and then decided to pick up smoking because they intuitively understood that it would help treat their condition. No, actually, that's not really possible.

You surely dispatched that strawmen. Congrats.

So really I just have a few questions. One, how do you explain the fact that only smokers get emphysema....

Now you have stepped beyond even the original strawmen. As it should be quite apparent from the trends graph above, your statement is blatantly false, hence there is nothing there to explain. The emphysema is more common in former smokers and increasingly in never-smokers. In fact when you correctly normalize statistical samples for exposure to inflammatory triggers, be it biological pathogens or certain industrial toxins (such as aluminum), the smokers fare so much better than ex-smokers or never-smokers regarding the onset of emphysema, that antismoking "researchers" had to invent a ficitious phenomenon -- the "healthy smoker effect" -- to explain the pesky "paradox" away. Interestingly, the tobacco use rapidly spread in Europe when thew royal physicians noticed its potent anti-inflammatory and decongestant effects (check MAOI B & dopaminergic effects of tobacco smoke) and started prescribing it to nobility for common respiratory problems. Until 1950s, even medical textbooks were advising smoking as a relief for asthma.

Also, are you aware of any large, well controlled human studies that demonstrate an increased lifespan in smokers. You've already discussed your animal subjects, but of course as we nootropics fans know, animal studies are not a guarentee of a paralell effect in humans.

Animal experiments are the scientific lifeblood of anti-aging and life-extension research. Nootropics present a slightly different problem, since human brain and mental performance are somewhat unique in the animal world (tobacco smoke happens to be a potent nootropic in animal and human domain, though).

As to why you don't see or hear about randomized intervention trials on humans regarding the dramatic life-extending effects of tobacco smoke observed in animal experiments over the last six decades -- it's because the few randomized intervention trials that were done (focusing on heart disease and lung cancers) backfired badly. So these "wrong" results, the closest thing to hard science in smoking research on humans, disappeared down the memory hole and neither pharma nor 'health bureaucracies' would dream of ever dropping a research penny again into that trap. Tobacco smoke is simply so potent youth elixir and they know perfectly well that one just can't rig the experimental conditions well enough to make it come out their way (see S.S. Hecht's survey mentined above on problems that "complicate the interpretation of data"; his delicate and masterful dance around this sensitive issue is quite funny).

That's all for now. I will be back next week and if this subject is still going I'd love to jump in with some research to back me up.

And make sure you had a good night sleep next time.

[bgwithadd]

On the other hand upregulation is generally a response to a negative stimulus just as downregulation is a response to positive stimulus, and upregulation due to carbon monoxide is hardly something that would get me excited over positive benefits.

Carbon monoxide at very low concentrations acts as a signaling molecule quite beneficial in stimulating angiogenesis, tissue oxygenation, inhibiting apoptosis...

The links you provide also have a lot of logic errors. They compare the 'inhaling' people to the 'noninhaling' as if this is comparing smokers to nonsmokers and that is a wild methodology error.

You surely picked the right guy to accuse of making logical errors. The 'inhaler anomaly' was pointed out by none other than the famous british mathematician, founder of modern scientific statistics, Sir Ronald A. FIsher. The quotes in the critique you commented on are from this Fisher's paper (pdf). That's like accusing St. Paul and St. Peter of misunderstanding christianity.

Then they state that the surveys against smoking are flawed due to a 'convenience sample', but this is not really the case. Everyone is identified as either smoker or nonsmoker and with that large of a sample size you can be assured that if the people are not identifying themselves as smokers properly (!!!) the error will average out. I mean, this is a sample of tens of thousands, and there are only two groups...smokers and nonsmokers. You can't compare that to a study where there are hundreds of demographic groups that matter and a tiny sample size like the dewey versus truman survey. Now, if doctors were different than nondoctors in their biology it might make a difference and make it constitute a convenience sample, but this is not likely to be the case. IE, it's very unlikely that it's bad for doctors to smoke but good for everyone else.

You don't appreciate the distinction between statistical correlation on randomized subjects (such as those used in drug trials) and self-selected subjects, such as being a smoker, never-smoker or ex-smoker are in all antismoking statistics (see here for explanation of its relevance). In any case, the critique of the leaps of logic in antismoking junk science is merely one aspect of my argument.

Much more important aspect is the hard experimental science of which you don't here much from antismoking "scientists" since the data there goes always the "wrong" way, demonstrating firmly the potent life-extending and neuroprotective effects of this ancient miracle medicine. As you can discover if you check papers linked here, the smoking test animals live longer, stay thinner, perform better on cognitive tests, tolerate stress and hardship better, accumulate less of environmental toxins (due to near doubling of glutathione, SOD and catalase).... than the non-smoking controls. That's the net effect of lifelong inhalation of tobacco smoke, even at doses several times greater than what humans smoke and in much less favorable conditions (whole body exposure, no breaks, no feedback to control dosing and pacing) than human smoking, observed over the last six decades on variety of test animals and co-exposures.

In the original link you included, this error was compared to the convenience sample in the dewey truman case, and it's obviously nothing like that. The error you are going to get from people misidentifying themselves is so miniscule that it would be negligible even in a 'small' study of a few hundred subjects...in one with 40k subjects, it's absolutely meaningless. You can wriggle around that all you like, but it's reality.

And again, instead of refuting my point about the other link that falsely claimed that a 'noninhaler' is the same as a nonsmoker, you post another story with the same logic error. If particle inhalation is the biggest cause of cancer, then why would we think that 'sham dust' would be healthier than smoking? More importantly, how is it equivalent to NOT smoking? There is no such thing as harmless particle inhalation. Dust inhalation is one of the more serious types of pollution worldwide.

[nightlight]

There is a spin-off thread from this one on the subtopic 'hazards of quitting' in another nootropics forum.

Edited by nightlight, 19 September 2008 - 10:50 PM.

[nightlight]

In the original link you included, this error was compared to the convenience sample in the dewey truman case, and it's obviously nothing like that. The error you are going to get from people misidentifying themselves is so miniscule that it would be negligible even in a 'small' study of a few hundred subjects...in one with 40k subjects, it's absolutely meaningless. You can wriggle around that all you like, but it's reality.

It appears that you are confusing my term "self-selected" (smoker...) with misidentified or mis/self-declared (be for Doll & Hill study, whose anomalies Fisher pointed out, or any other epidemological study). The term "self-selected" smoker (or ex-smoker or never-smoker), which I used in my argument against the unwarranted leaps of logic from correlation to causation (the primary "scientific" method of antismoking "science"), means that someone is a smoker (or ex-smoker or never-smoker) for reasons which are not randomized (either by researchers or by nature) among the samples.

Therefore, as explained and illustrated in detail in the earlier post here, the observed correlations of 'smoking' and 'smoking related diseases' on such non-randomized samples are consistent with at least 3 hypothetical models, (a), (b) and (c) described above, hence such correlations do not imply model (a) (smoking causes 'smoking related diseases') as antismoking "science" has declared. This distinction is particularly important here, since the main "self-selection" parameter 'tobacco smoke' has numerous well established effects on the physiology and biochemistry of the smoker which are quite relevant for those diseases or the toxins/carcinogens that can cause them. For example, the stong upregulation of key internal antioxidants and detox enzymes (glutathione, SOD and catalase nearly doubled), or of neutrophiles and anti-inflammatory mechanisms, imply that people exposed to various industrial toxins (or biological pathogens) at work or at home would experience relief by smoking due to the higher detox rates. Hence they would have a stronger reason to smoke than subjects not exposed to those industrial toxins. By virtue of such effects, the smoking becomes a statistical marker of various hardships and exposures which themselves are the causes of 'smoking related diseases'.

It is thus as illegitimate to leap from correlations of smoking and 'smoking related diseases' to conclusion that smoking causes those diseases, as it would be to conclude from correlations between the use of statins with later heart attacks that statins cause heart attacks.

... you post another story with the same logic error. If particle inhalation is the biggest cause of cancer, then why would we think that 'sham dust' would be healthier than smoking? More importantly, how is it equivalent to NOT smoking? There is no such thing as harmless particle inhalation. Dust inhalation is one of the more serious types of pollution worldwide.

You are again mistaking the terms, this time "sham dust" with "dust" since you obviously didn't read the cited report (pdf) to find out what the terms they used mean. The "sham dust" and "sham smoke" mean (cf. pp 24-25, "Sham Exposures" in the "Materials and Methods" section) that they subject the non-exposed hamsters to the same physical handling (constraints, moving them to other chambers) that the exposed hamsters (to toxic industrial dusts or tobacco smoke) undergo. These "sham exposures" were done in order to make sure that any effects of handling (e.g. stress) are not affecting only the smoke and/or dust exposed group, hence that any observed differences are due solely to the differences in the substances hamsters were exposed to.

In the graph I brought up, both groups were "exposed" to "sham dust", which means they inhaled no dust, while being handled the same way the dust exposed groups were handled. One of the two groups on the graph was actually exposed to tobacco smoke (the one that stayed thinner and had nearly 50% more survivors near the end of the natural hamster lifespan), while the other group was exposed to "sham smoke" i.e. to plain, clean air, while going through the same physical handling and motions as the smoking group. So, now you know what all that means.

[JLL]

This and the other read have been a very interesting read... nightlight makes a pretty strong case.

I understand his reasoning about causations and correlations and he may well be correct, but just to put all this scientific argumentation in layman's terms: are you saying that the negative effects we see in smokers (like lung problems) not really due to smoking but something else, and that if they did not smoke, these effects would be even worse?

What I find appalling is that people here are ready to ban someone from the forums simply for posting an opinion different from their own - especially when that opinion is so well written and there is a lot of hard data to back it all up. It reminds me of the whole global warming thing: if you want to shut the other party up rather than debate them properly, then your own science must not be very strong. I thought and hoped that this kind of behaviour was not a part of imminst. Kind of makes me sick.