180 replies to this topic

[BLimitless]

Let's suppose a person was a chronic smoker. Of course you may immediately say "stop smoking". Or "switch to e-cigarettes/NRT". But let's leave those aside and assume a pack a day smoker of any kind of tobacco who will not do anything but smoke. This is not specifically for me by the way, just a thought experiment in harm reduction.

What kind of vitamins, minerals, herbs and other supplements should such a person take in order to

- Maximise mucus elimination from the lungs
- Keep cillia regenerating as fast as possible
- Eliminate tar from lungs
- Eliminate free radicals from smoke
- Reduce risk of cancer
- Improve cardiovascular fitness and maintain good lung capacity
- Preserve the quality of the skin or improve it
- Reduce addictive potential, inhibit compulsive desire to smoke - i.e. weaken nicotine's pull on the psyche


Of course there are many other things. Thus far I can only think of a few things that might help. N-Acetyl-Cysteine, turmeric & pepper. Lots of habanero/cayenne to keep blood flow up. Niacin and B vitamins are crucial. Resveratrol and other antioxidants.

What do you guys think? One day the combustion of tobacco might become entirely obsolete if electronic cigarettes come into full fruition. But until then there are many smokers and a healthy world is better than an unhealthy world, so every little helps. Everyone has a great grandad's second cousin four times removed's long lost twin in the Vietnam war who smoked 200 a day and lived to the ripe old age of 6 billion years and died peacefully in their sleep with not a tumour in sight. Part of that is genetics but in terms of lifestyle, what are they doing right that everyone else is doing wrong?

Thanks

Edited by BLimitless, 18 January 2013 - 02:26 PM.

[f.v.c.]

Hello,

I would like to suggest that the practice of tobacco smoking, in and of itself - may not be a particularly hazardous or dangerous activity.

Many will have seen informative postings by the member here, Nightlight, on this topic. For example, the fact that experiments, often sponsored by the anti-smoking lobby, conducted upon animals in the past - for many years failed to demonstrate a strong causative link between tobacco smoking and lung cancer in the animal model.¹

For a long time, it was commonly thought that the primary carcinogens in cigarette smoke were toxic chemicals such as nitrosamines, acetaldehyde, benzene, and such similar.

However, recently, new information has come to light which now shows that the chief cause of lung cancer and respiratory disease in cigarette smokers is in fact radiation poisoning from Polonium-210 and Lead-210.

Remember Alexander Litvinenko? His drawn, grey, haggard face photographed from his hospital bed shortly before his death from (apparent) radiation poisoning? I recall reading some Irvine Welsh book, wherein he writes about smokers - how it’s as if the cigarette’s smoking them; sucking the life out, turning their face grey, drawn, haggard, and so on..

Internal documents produced by the tobacco companies indicate that they were well aware, as far back as the 1950s and 60s, of the fact that the massive doses of highly dangerous ionising alpha particle radiation that every cigarette smoker was/is internally exposed to^_,2 will cause lung cancer in a significant proportion of smokers over a 25 year period (On average, 13 percent).³

Incredibly, Big Tobacco has secretly had the ability to remove the radioactive Polonium-210 from cigarettes for many years, but has refused to do so; for fear that the treatment (washing with acid) might result in cigarettes less enjoyable to consumers, and hence, reduced profits. The acid wash technique renders the nicotine in tobacco ionised, thus less able to cross biological membranes, weakening the 'free-basing' nicotine “hit” that cigarette smoking currently delivers.³

Results: The documents show that the industry was well aware of the presence of a radioactive substance in tobacco as early as 1959. Furthermore, the industry was not only cognizant of the potential “cancerous growth” in the lungs of regular smokers but also did quantitative radiobiological calculations to estimate the long-term (25 years) lung radiation absorption dose (rad) of ionizing alpha particles emitted from the cigarette smoke. Our own calculations of lung rad of alpha particles match closely the rad estimated by the industry. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the industry's and our estimate of long-term lung rad of alpha particles causes 120–138 lung cancer deaths per year per 1,000 regular smokers. Acid wash was discovered in 1980 to be highly effectively in removing 210Po from the tobacco leaves; however, the industry avoided its use for concerns that acid media would ionize nicotine converting it into a poorly absorbable form into the brain of smokers thus depriving them of the much sought after instant “nicotine kick” sensation.
Conclusions: The evidence of lung cancer risk caused by cigarette smoke radioactivity is compelling enough to warrant its removal.

Some interesting research was published this month, regarding nicotine vs. “de-nicotinated” cigarettes. It’s weird. The de-nicotinated cigarettes seemed to manage to alleviate cravings, promote wakefulness, trigger dopamine release, etc. - almost as effectively as those containing nicotine.⁴ Although the dopamine release varied between the left and right striata, depending on nicotine content.
More research is needed…

Regarding electronic cigarettes; do you trust your source? the FDA found the highly poisonous Diethylene glycol in some units, rather than the expected Dipropylene glycol.⁵ Still, at least there’s no irradiation of internal organs occurring…
Also, with electronic cigs, the MAO inhibiting component is conspicuous by its absence. I did find that one company has developed an "enhancing lozenge" for use with electro cigs (and vaped THC, apparently). A freebasing accessory, perhaps?...⁶

I’m a smoker at the moment; I have purchased a cache of seeds and will be attempting to grow my own. We need to know more about the "acid wash technique", and why it's apparently not being used by industry at all at this time.

We also need to know more about the levels of radioactive isotopes taken up by tobacco plants from the atmosphere generally, vs. the levels taken up from soil which has been artificially polluted by phosphate fertilizers.

PRE_SUB EDIT: I found something re: the latter - an US government document from 1969...⁷

The Po²¹⁰ content in various U .S . tobacco types ranges from 0.15 to 1.01 pc/g^1,2. The natural abundance of Ra²²⁶ in tobacco soils is between 0.52 and 1.53 pc/g-generally higher in fields of continued cultivation and heavy phosphate fertilization.
Tobacco plants grown in chambers enriched with Rn²²² in the atmosphere (500 times greater than normal background) only had twice the amount of P0210 as the control, indicating that airborne Rn²²² and its daughters are not the major source of Pb²¹⁰ or Po210 in leaf tobacco.³
Evidence obtained so far shows that major portions of these radio-elements were probably absorbed through the roots . Pb²¹⁰ applied to growing tobacco leaves was not freely translocated with other areas.
_{¹TSO, T. C., HALLDEN, N . A ., and ALEXANDER, L . T. : Science 146 : 1043-1045, 1964 .
²---; Tobacco Sci 10 : 105-106, 1966.
³TSO, T . C . HARLEY, N., and ALEXANDER, L . T . : Science 153 : 880-882, 1966 .}

1 http://carcin.oxford...9/1488.full.pdf
2 (apparently estimated at around 10 Sv for the quarter-century, or 5,000 times the maximum annual permitted dose for US nuclear energy workers!) (from³)
3 http://ntr.oxfordjou...4/1/79.full.pdf
4 http://ntr.oxfordjou...5/1/11.full.pdf
5 http://www.fda.gov/d...h/UCM173250.pdf
6 http://www.prnewswir...-186000012.html
7 National Cancer Institute Monograph 28, June 1968. Page 211. Accessible at http://legacy.librar...id/zan85c00/pdf

Here is the searchable archive of 80 million pages of documents previously kept secret by the major tobacco companies: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/
There's some crazy interesting shit hidden away in there...

Edited by f.v.c., 28 January 2013 - 09:17 PM.

[hippocampus]

don't be stupid, read about cognitive dissonance, stop smoking and use swedish (!) snus (or whatever suits you, but IMO snus is the best form of smokeless tobbaco). Why I don't believe what f.v.c. is saying: chewing tobbaco contains a lot of nitrosamines and is carcinogenic, OTOH snus contains very small amount of nitrosamines (although I don't know anything about radioactives) and is much less (99% less) carcinogenic. And: other forms of smoke are also carcinogenic (like burning wood, coal whatever). And why wouldn't you stop smoking - what is so good about smoking that you can't achieve with smokeless tobbaco?

Edited by hippocampus, 28 January 2013 - 10:31 PM.

[hippocampus]

And about addiction: nicotine is possibly the most addictive substance on Earth, NAC may help a little with cravings after stopping smoking. I also experienced less pleasure from snus when using fish oil high in DHA (although EPA may also have something to do with that) and vitamin D (this is just anecdotal, of course) - so this may mean less addictive potential, but of course less pleasure is probably not what you want to achieve. OTOH, if you don't feel need to smoke that probably means you feel better and this is what everybody wants to achieve. Also, users of antipsychotic often report that they smoke more when on medication, so dopaminergic modulation may have something to do with this. Probably mindfulness meditation and similar techniques will make you smoke less, but again, this is just my hypothesis, I don't know if it has been verified or anything.

Well, I've done google search and here is what I found about mindfulness and smoking cessation: http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/21723049

[f.v.c.]

I quite agree - smoking is harmful, radiation outwith; nicotine is addictive, nitrosamines, and other chemicals in tobacco and in smoke, are also carcinogenic.

However, I don’t think the evidence from the tobacco companies themselves linking radioactive isotopes found in tobacco smoke to respiratory disease can be easily dismissed.

Remember, smoking is the number one preventable cause of respiratory disease. It is easy to say “don’t smoke”, but millions of people worldwide are bound to ignore or disregard this (very sensible) advice.
Hence, the focus should be also on mitigating the potential harms from smoking.

Unfortunately, the links to most of the studies I posted above now appear to require a login, however I was able yesterday to create a free account at the Oxford University Press, login and view them. I urge any interested party to do the same.

This is the most important, and germane → http://ntr.oxfordjou...content/14/1/79

As to the question of “Why smoke”? The inhibition of MAO (monoamine oxidase) by cigarette smoke is a key factor here. Interestingly, the clinical test for dependence on nicotine, the Fagorstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND), has recently been proposed to be renamed the FNCD, to reflect the fact that the high level of dependence that develops to smoking cigarettes and tobacco is hard to reconcile with the notion that it is soley an addiction to nicotine. Evidence for this includes the aforementioned MAOi component in cigarette smoke, the relative lack of efficacy of nicotine replacement therapies¹,the fact that there is little or no clinical evidence for the abuse of pure nicotine and the fact that nicotine is a relatively weak reinforcer in both human and animal laboratory tests^2,3.
¹Fiore et al 2008, Treating tobacco use and dependence: 2008 update U.S. Public Health Service Clinical Practice Guideline executive summary.
²Villégier et al 2003, Transient behavioral sensitization to nicotine becomes long-lasting with monoamine oxidases inhibitors.
³ Perkins et al 2001, Reinforcing effects of nicotine as a function of smoking status.

_{PS Although I must thank you, hippocampus, for the kind and thoughtful advice regarding cessation of tobacco smoking. You are right of course, it isn't an activity beneficial to anyone's health. Cognitive dissonance is not a term with which I am unfamiliar...}

Edited by f.v.c., 29 January 2013 - 12:30 AM.

[hippocampus]

Well, that's why I recommended snus and not nicotine patches/e-cigs - I read some report of some guy on the internet who tried quitting smoking with e-cigarettes. However, it never really worked for him, it was kind of unnatural. Then he tried (swedish) snus and then he had exact the same feeling as with cigarettes. He atributed this to MAOIs in tobacco (but not in nicotine without tobacco). I don't know if MAOI are present in snus, but it's worth trying anyway. Besides that, Sweden has the lowest number of smoking-related deaths in EU and the lowest amount of male smokers (about 13 % if I remember correctly, Denmark is second with about 20 % which is a big difference). It is also the only country in EU that allows snus for sale. So, snus helps people quitting smoking, at least males (I suppose most females find it very disgusting or not fancy or whatever ... I really don't understand them) and it is possibly better than other forms of non-smoking forms of nicotine.

After a quick search I found this: http://www.google.si...us MAOI&f=false (and a couple of some other sources which mention MAOI and tobacco (not tobacco smoke!) in one sentence).

So, snus may contain MAOIs, but I let somebody else to do more thorough search.

Edited by hippocampus, 29 January 2013 - 12:44 AM.

[niner]

Incredibly, Big Tobacco has secretly had the ability to remove the radioactive Polonium-210 from cigarettes for many years, but has refused to do so; for fear that the treatment (washing with acid) might result in cigarettes less enjoyable to consumers, and hence, reduced profits. The acid wash technique renders the nicotine in tobacco ionised, thus less able to cross biological membranes, weakening the 'free-basing' nicotine “hit” that cigarette smoking currently delivers.

Thanks for this information, f.v.c. There are two things that don't add up for me. One is the excuse that acid washing would wreck the nicotine high. All they would need to do in order to fix that is neutralize the tobacco with some base, thus converting the nicotine back into the freebase form. The second thing is that I'd think someone would see a market in low-cancer cigarettes, and would have put it together. If you were a smoker, wouldn't you jump at the chance to get a cancer-free cigarette?

[Adamzski]

Try the ecigs, at least give it a go. get a candy or fruit flavoured ecig juice so you can stop associating the taste of cigs with the nicotine hit.
this is pretty much the same setup I have


Even try smoking ecig half day then cigs the rest.

I have never tried snus but it may be good.

[platypus]

Incredibly, Big Tobacco has secretly had the ability to remove the radioactive Polonium-210 from cigarettes for many years, but has refused to do so; for fear that the treatment (washing with acid) might result in cigarettes less enjoyable to consumers, and hence, reduced profits. The acid wash technique renders the nicotine in tobacco ionised, thus less able to cross biological membranes, weakening the 'free-basing' nicotine “hit” that cigarette smoking currently delivers.

Thanks for this information, f.v.c. There are two things that don't add up for me. One is the excuse that acid washing would wreck the nicotine high. All they would need to do in order to fix that is neutralize the tobacco with some base, thus converting the nicotine back into the freebase form. The second thing is that I'd think someone would see a market in low-cancer cigarettes, and would have put it together. If you were a smoker, wouldn't you jump at the chance to get a cancer-free cigarette?

Right, adding nicotine back to the acid washed tobacco should also be easy.

[Application]

Incredibly, Big Tobacco has secretly had the ability to remove the radioactive Polonium-210 from cigarettes for many years, but has refused to do so; for fear that the treatment (washing with acid) might result in cigarettes less enjoyable to consumers, and hence, reduced profits. The acid wash technique renders the nicotine in tobacco ionised, thus less able to cross biological membranes, weakening the 'free-basing' nicotine “hit” that cigarette smoking currently delivers.

Thanks for this information, f.v.c. There are two things that don't add up for me. One is the excuse that acid washing would wreck the nicotine high. All they would need to do in order to fix that is neutralize the tobacco with some base, thus converting the nicotine back into the freebase form. The second thing is that I'd think someone would see a market in low-cancer cigarettes, and would have put it together. If you were a smoker, wouldn't you jump at the chance to get a cancer-free cigarette?

Not implementing the acid washing would be historically consistent with the dirty behavior of big tobacco. In the 1970s Ligget developed a much safer cigarette which dramatically reduced cancer incidence by 90%-100% in animal experiments. Their lawyers supposedly quashed its release by arguing that producing and advertising a reduced cancer risk cigarette would be an admission that ordinary cigarettes did produce cancer.

http://www.sourcewat...adium_cigarette

http://legacy.librar...id/rtm88d00/pdf

Edited by Application, 01 February 2013 - 02:22 AM.

[BLimitless]

Not to mention that tobacco is known as a source for some pretty good anti-carcinogen alkaloids - cembranoids.


Guys, can I please remind you this is a thought experiment with specific restrictions. I'm getting an e-cig myself some time but there are people who simply will not budge. Sure it's stupid but still, harm reduction is key. Anne frankly this whole "let them kill themselves with their own ignorance" hint of eugenics is totally out of mein kampfert zone.


Quit stalin, I'm russian for a quick fix, get your ass to it and putin some effort dammit.




I know Lobelia is good, there were a few other expectorant herbs I found a long time ago, the names I cannot recall.

Maybe something like this:

A.) Stimulate mucus accumulation in lungs
B.) Stimulate mucus expulsion from lungs
C.) GOTO A


Hooray, we have a second breath cycle. Now we can smoke like chimneys and breathe snot.




Man, if I have to do this all on my own, then soviet.

Edited by BLimitless, 01 February 2013 - 02:50 AM.

[Luminosity]

Whatever makes you stop smoking.

[Logic]

Curcumin was mentioned somewhere in the forum (with study links) as very protective of the negative effects of smoking.

(Sorry for getting the thread back on subject! )

[Adamzski]

Whatever the Japanese are doing works. They smoke like crazy and have a much lower incidence of lung cancer.
They say that part of the reason could be charcoal filtered cigarettes. Maybe we could end up with a list here of things that when done together reduce the risk of heavy smoking by 50% or more.

I have read about nicotine helping heart attack recovery.

These anti smokers just hate the smell and litter problems that come with smoking.. they really would rather smokers die.

[maxwatt]

My Chinese client worked (briefly) with a French/Iranian customer who had patented a cigarette filter hat used rosemarinic acid to neutralized most of the carcinogens in cigarette smoke; unfortunately his funding evaporated int he financial collapse in 2006, and he collected 30 tons of my Chinese client's rosemary extract and never paid. I tried to meet him by posing as a representative of a cigarette holder company, but he smelled a rat and cancelled. (There's more to the story, but it would only be an interesting digression.) I don't know if using the filter would reduce lung cancer in humans as in mice, but it did reduce the amount of known carcinogens in the smoke.

I feel sorry for smokers and do not wish they would die. Choke, maybe, but not die. Remember smoking is not harmful or bothersome to others as long as you don't exhale.

[Logic]

http://www.google.co...iw=1140&bih=506

Lots of things it would seem.

[BLimitless]

How about running the smoke through a filtration system like a water pipe or something? I envision a little cartridge you put a rollup into, containing a one way valve on each end and another valve to fill it with a solvent like water or an emulsion (GOT MILK?).

Please remember not everyone is made of money. Right now I am in a position where the state of Zen I am cultivating works optimally with a7 nAChR stimulation and of course MAO inhibition. I'm getting an e-cig some time soon but until then my lungs are getting painted with tar. Actually I stopped smoking for a long time but started again, I could stop again but the state somewhat demands an a7 agonist.

[ericthered10]

No need to feel sorry champ, we made the choice to do so. I do feel sorry that you find them harmful and bothersome to you (well, bothersome, as second hand smoke is not harmful, especially given that public indoor smoking is a thing of the past). I'm pretty sure we all have habits and attributes that are bothersome to others, yourself included.

[hippocampus]

Whatever the Japanese are doing works. They smoke like crazy and have a much lower incidence of lung cancer.
They say that part of the reason could be charcoal filtered cigarettes. Maybe we could end up with a list here of things that when done together reduce the risk of heavy smoking by 50% or more.

I have read about nicotine helping heart attack recovery.

These anti smokers just hate the smell and litter problems that come with smoking.. they really would rather smokers die.

You are accusing me (and others) for being misanthropic. I would not like anybody to die, I'm just proposing safe (well, at least much safer) proved alternatives.

Curcumin was mentioned somewhere in the forum (with study links) as very protective of the negative effects of smoking.

(Sorry for getting the thread back on subject! )

Curcumin may also reduce craving and need for smoking. When I began to take turmeric every day I quit using snus for a while very easily and I had absolutely no cravings. Maybe it has something to do with MAO inhibition or it may be something else. But it doesn't really work anymore for me (but others supplements help me as I wrote in my second post).

[Adaptogen]

My Chinese client worked (briefly) with a French/Iranian customer who had patented a cigarette filter hat used rosemarinic acid to neutralized most of the carcinogens in cigarette smoke; unfortunately his funding evaporated int he financial collapse in 2006, and he collected 30 tons of my Chinese client's rosemary extract and never paid. I tried to meet him by posing as a representative of a cigarette holder company, but he smelled a rat and cancelled. (There's more to the story, but it would only be an interesting digression.) I don't know if using the filter would reduce lung cancer in humans as in mice, but it did reduce the amount of known carcinogens in the smoke.

I feel sorry for smokers and do not wish they would die. Choke, maybe, but not die. Remember smoking is not harmful or bothersome to others as long as you don't exhale.

interesting, i would like to hear the rest of the story if you feel like sharing

[maxwatt]

Not that much more to tell. The Iranian claimed to be in hospital with a heart attack which was plainly bogus - he was in New York looking for funding. I suggested walking in to his Paris office with some heavy-set "friends" from Marseille when he returned. But you cannot squeeze blood from a stone. He had counted on getting funding between placing the order and its arrival in France, but it did not happen. Some investigation determined there were no assets to seize even if we could (at no little expense) persuade a French court to do so. The Chinese were not pleased but wrote it off.

[Logic]

Black tea prevents cigarette smoke-induced apoptosis and lung damage
http://www.journal-i...fmt_view=mobile

Green tea protects human osteoblasts from cigarette smoke-induced injury: possible clinical implication
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/22160325

Apple polyphenol protects against cigarette smoke-induced acute lung injury
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/22964088

Carbocisteine protects against emphysema induced by cigarette smoke extract in rats.
http://www.bioportfo...ct-In-Rats.html

Curcumin protects against cigarette smoke-induced cognitive impairment and increased acetylcholinesterase activity in rats
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/22579739

Andrographolide protects against cigarette smoke-induced oxidative lung injury via augmentation of Nrf2 activity.
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/23146110

Beta-carotene protects rats against bronchitis induced by cigarette smoking
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/12875713

Free and nanoencapsulated curcumin prevents cigarette smoke-induced cognitive impairment and redox imbalance.
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/23261855

Curcumin attenuates elastase- and cigarette smoke-induced pulmonary emphysema in mice.
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/19168576

These are just some results from the search link I posted earlier and everyone chose to ignore.
Im guessing that smokers are either stupid, lazy, or just like to piss me off and thus cause me to smoke!?
Actually Im really interested to know everyone's real reasons???

[hippocampus]

I think that these vitamins/supplements/whatever may just delay cancer/cardiovascular disease onset by few years on average, but do not prevent them.

[Luminosity]

Smoking damages cartilage and joints. So if one has a problems with these areas, quitting smoking is imperative.

The Japanese drink a lot of green tea and eat far less dairy, hydrogenated oil, sugar, and saturated fats than we do. They eat more fresh and raw fish. They don't overeat like we do. Because they lived such a clean life for hundreds of years, they have a residual bank of good health that is only now being depleted. Gradually they are getting more obesity and acne, for instance. There are people of Japanese ancestry who have lived in my area since the late 1800's. When I was young they had no acne or excess weight but now they do. When I was growing up I didn't even think Asians got acne or could be overweight. Give people enough generations of sugar and fat and they will. Don't mistake the benefits of generations of healthy living for some magic bullet that will stop the harm from smoking. Sure, their good habits mitigate the harm from smoking but it may not help you that much. On the positive side, since they adopted more Western diets, Asians are getting taller, leggier and having better teeth and bones structures. Maybe the just having enough food is helpful also. That might have been an issue.

Smoking is just bad news. There's no way to make it o.k.

Edited by Luminosity, 07 February 2013 - 03:53 AM.

[nightlight]

Smoking damages cartilage and joints. So if one has a problems with these areas, quitting smoking is imperative.

That's a junk science urban legend. The observation that smoking is statistically associated (on non-randomized samples) with higher rates of rheumatoid arhtiritis is correct. But leaping from such association on non-randomized samples to conclusions that smoking makes it worse or initiates/causes it is incorrect. First, purely logically it doesn't follow, second, it contradicts the hard science findings. Hence, it's a pure, deliberate junk science (created & sold chiefly by pharmaceutical industry; they are unrivalled masters of junk science - nobody does it as well, as much or as profitably as they do; 'global warmers' are childish amateurs in comparison).

The hard science (experiments) finds exactly the opposite -- smoking is protective and therapeutic for arthritis. Tobacco smoke is potent anti-inflammatory substance and smoking provides relief against autoimmune diseases, including arthritis, hence the observed statistical association (via self-medication). Check for example a recent paper about rheumatoid arthritis experiments on mice -- 3 groups of mice were used, untreated control group, nicotine only group and tobacco smoke group. The nicotine group did better than controls, while tobacco smoke (which has additional anti-inflammatory & anti-apopototic effects beyond those of nicotine) group did the best -- the disease onset was delayed relative to the other groups and the damage to cartilage was much less severe than in the other groups.

Of course, even though the above and similar experiments demonstrating potent anti-inflammatory effects of tobacco smoke have been known for a long time, doctors will strongly advise R.A. patients to stop smoking, then sell them synthetic anti-inflammatory substances and stroke inducing pain medications (as they did to my mother in law who died from series of strokes after her doctor started her on Vioxx; she was a university professor, hence overly educted to have much common sense and keep away from quacks brandishing the latest, greatest snake oils). They routinely do the same for other natural medicines, too, but for none as intensely or as stridently as for tobacco, the most potent one among them all (hence the most harmful to their business model).

There was an earlier thread "Smoking is good for you", where you would find among others, the above mice experiment & R.A. discussed in the context of anti-inflammatory effects of tobacco smoke (#7 below). For convenience, since there was lots of noise from antismoking crowd, here are links to the highlights of the discussion:


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 more than a 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

(Fisher suspected this to be the case in 1950s, he also suggested
self-medication possibility, see page 163, where he compares taking
cigarettes away from some poor chap to taking the walking stick
from a blind man.)
http://www.york.ac.u...tat/smoking.htm
http://www.york.ac.u...t/fisher274.pdf

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 the master method
of antismoking "science")

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

10. Glycotoxins/AGE in tobacco smoke -- backfires badly

11. Smoking protects against cancers (reversal of values in cancer state
and another common sleight of hand), Smoking vs Caloric Restrictions
(and on fundamental wrong-headedness of CR)

12. More on anti-carcinogenicity of tobacco smoke and how to translate
Orwellian antismoking "science" to real science

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 of 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?

Edited by nightlight, 07 February 2013 - 05:39 AM.

[Luminosity]

You're just wrong. After having lived half a century, I've personally seen many smokers develop problems with joints and cartilage. There is a pattern. It is not random. Some develop fibromyalgia as well. Smoking clauses acidic wastes that may gather in the joints and damage them.

[nightlight]

There is a pattern. It is not random.

Of course there is a pattern -- association between substance X and disease D will exist whether

a) substance X causes D or
b) substance X protects against D or its real causes.

Association on non-randomized sample (namely, you didn't pick randomly and assign one person to smoking, another to non-smoking group; they selected themselves into those categories) merely tells you that X and D are in a common web of causes and effects, but the nature of the links within that web must be uncovered by hard science, such as randomized trials or animal/human experiments. That's precisely why I pointed you to a research which performed the hard science investigation regarding the observed association of smoking and rheumatoid arthritis. And the hard science has uncovered that (b) was the correct explanation -- smoking is protective and therapeutic against R.A. (and myriad other autoimmune diseases, as you will find if you care to look, in the thread above), hence people with R.A. in any phase will find it helpful and will self-medicate with tobacco, resulting in the observed statistical association.

This is no different than observing that people who wear sun glasses will have more sunburns than those who don't wear them, even though sun glasses protect you (partially) against sun radiation. It is precisely because of that protection that sun glasses become a proxy for sun exposure, hence for sunburns. Interestingly, there is also a proper dose-response relation (those wearing them more will have more sunburns) and if you were to ban sun glasses, there would be a drop in sunburns (people in sunny regions would dwell less outside in the sun, since it would hurt their eyes more without glasses).

But if you disregard their protective role, as it is routinely done in the antismoking "science" regarding medicinal effects of tobacco smoke, and only observe statistical associations of that kind, you may well jump to the wrong conclusion that sun glasses cause sunburns, as you did about arthritis and smoking (you are apparently unaware of anti-inflammatory effects of tobacco smoke or of the experimental results regarding R.A., such as the one I cited earlier).

Of course, the fact alone that after six decades of antismoking "science" you will only hear about associations on non-randomized samples (smokers have more of this or that disease or other problems than non-smokers), but not about results of hard science (such as the experiment above, or numerous others cited and discussed in the earlier thread), is more telling than anything else -- they are so quiet about the hard science since it always goes the "wrong" way. This pattern is so unusual in normal science that already in 1958, the father of modern statistical methods, famous British mathematician R. A. Fisher noticed it and wrote (pdf; this article also contains a very readable exposition of the sample randomization topic you ought to learn about so you won't be taken for a ride by every junk science scam du jour):

Most of us thought at the time, on hearing the nature of evidence, which I hope to make clear a little later, that a good prima facie case had been made for further investigation. 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 to 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 confirming Dr. Hill's findings. I think they had concurred, but I think they were mere repetitions of evidence of the same kind...

Yet, over half a century later, they are still stuck on making their case using the same statistical argument Fisher objected to in 1958, since the real science doesn't work (for their agenda $$$).

Edited by nightlight, 07 February 2013 - 08:30 AM.

[hippocampus]

Well, nightlight, you are actually saying that tobacco can be both positive and negative, while smoking is always bad for you. There are forms of non-smoking tobacco.

[nightlight]

Well, nightlight, you are actually saying that tobacco can be both positive and negative, while smoking is always bad for you.

That must have come through this translator: "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." -> "The vodka is good, but the meat is rotten."

[hippocampus]

Well, what positive health effects does tobacco smoke have that non-smokable forms of tobacco do not have (e.g. snus)?