10 replies to this topic

[Adamzski]

https://vine.co/v/MQFhz5AOMZI

 

The above vine, I understand how some people may think they are doing the world a service by dramatising things.

 

Smoking is bad for you no doubt but would you expect a regular 50yo pack a day smoker who has no disease to have black lungs like they claim?

 

here claims that lungs do not go black and that doctors can not tell if a person is a smoker by looking at their lungs http://cfrankdavis.w...black-lung-lie/

[niner]

There are certainly 50yo smokers with emphysema, also 50yo smokers without it.  Frank Davis is a pro-smoking guy.  Longecity's own "smoking is good for you" advocate, nightlight, is probably a friend of his.  Nightlight would tell you that, well, smoking is good for you.  The only guy I know whose head is currently bobbing in a vat of liquid nitrogen is former Imminst personality and free speech forum namesake William O'Rights.  He was a two pack a day guy, got lung cancer when he was around 40.  But enough of the anecdotes...  Probably most smokers lungs are not black.  The famous "black lung disease" comes from breathing coal dust.  Cancer will cause all manner of discoloration, and emphysematous lungs are grey.  It sounds like the lungs of healthy smokers look ok.  At least as long as they're healthy. 

 

I worry about you, Adamzski.  Have you ever tried oral nicotine?  Vaping?  Seems to me that vaping is a pretty good simulation of smoking, and it's got to be way better for you.

[Adamzski]

Thanks for your concern, yes I am vaping but still smoking, around 40yo is very close to my age and I am really concerned about cancer.

 

I am really going to try harder to smoke less and less real cigarettes. Down to about 20 per day now, which is a crazy amount still.

 

I agree that organic tobacco could be less harmful and that diesel particulates and all the other crap in the air could be worse than smoking cigs but no one could say its a good idea to smoke.

 

Also I see that the Japanese smoke like crazy and have much less cancer than us in western countries, but yep Im not Japanese..

 

[Lazarus Long]

I'll try to keep this reply short; yes all lungs are discolored black after continuous inhalation of smoke, particularly tobacco smoke.  

 

Don't confuse this with a condition known as Black Lung Disease, which as Niner says is related to the inhalation of prolonged exposure to coal dust.  

 

Just take a moment to contemplate your filtered cigarette tip and appreciate the gooey filter after each use.  Both the tars and nicotine will contribute a deep jaundiced yellow and black staining color (like what happens to your teeth) as well as considerable sludge after each use.  These substances will accumulate in the lungs the same way. Regardless of initiating advanced lung disease or COPD they WILL diminish lung capacity after prolonged use even when no other overt symptoms of disease are apparent. The lungs are NOT the digestive track and they do not have a way to purge themselves well of accumulated foreign substances like tars easily. There is a coughing response but that cannot keep pace with the introduction of new accumulations in people who smoke regularly.

 

Sticky tars have the added bad effect of capturing other particles out of the air and trapping them in the lungs, such as dust and pollen, or as in the case of many miners and construction workers, coal, asbestos, fiberglass and other dangerous particles.  In fact adding tars to the mucus lined membranes of the bronchial passages inhibits the few mechanisms the lungs have of purging particulate matter.  The alveoli are even more sensitive to this problem as they are a very delicate spongy material that acts just like a filter and has less ability to purge than the passages leading to them.

 

I personally had the experience of first hand examining such lungs from allegedly healthy as well as diseased cadavers because my father was one of the pathologists involved in the research that connected smoking with cancer starting in the 1950's and he insisted that I help him with his studies while I was growing up in order to discourage me from smoking. I helped prepare the lungs and preserve the tissues before microtoming them and studying them under the microscope.  This was done with both human and dog lungs.  Even when disease was not apparent prior to death the staining and clogging of the alveoli was invariably observed on direct inspection.

 

As for the new methods of ingesting nicotine all I will add is that it should be remembered that nicotine is still a very powerful mutagen used in genetics for its ability to shatter genetic bonds and help in transcriptase.  As I remember from studying genetics: not all mutagens are carcinogens but all carcinogens are mutagens.

 

While nicotine's mutagenic properties are indisputable not all people will respond to those by developing cancers and I suspect that as in many other areas, soon we may be able to test for an individual's genetic tendency in this matter.  However the link between smoking and cancer is not only for lung disease, it is for ALL the associated soft tissues that are exposed, from the lips on down.

 

Vaping (a word that always reminds me of "vapid") however, is logically a much better idea than smoking as it produces far less accumulated heavy tar even though "oleo", essentially vegetable oil, is used as a carrier for the drug. I suspect the law of unintended consequence will come into play with this method too because essentially those who vape the wide range of substances now in use are basically volunteer guinea pigs in a gigantic unregulated and uncontrolled experiment with the slow anecdotal sharing of info to gain a better understanding of what is actually happening to the population of users. In ten or twenty years I'm sure we will know a lot more. 

Edited by Lazarus Long, 28 August 2014 - 04:18 PM.

[Adamzski]

Yes thanks very informative.

 

I get discouraged by knowing that vaping is an unknown, it has not been studied and all these people claiming that it is perfectly safe all over the web are zealots or employed by ecig companies. 

 

Thing is that when I vape I like most people who do it chain vape, and even without smoking real cigs I end up consuming a lot of nicotine. I vape 6mg pretty much the lowest available (I smoke 1mg regular cigs) I end up having all the things that come with high usage of nicotine, intense dreaming, insomnia, ringing in ears, some slight paranoia. I might be getting less tar but I am increasing the nicotine by a lot.

 

I first tried out vaping with 18mg juice 4 years ago, It did not affect me very much, I was able to quit regular cigs for a few months and thought I would never go back, chain vaped at the time but had no effects from the nicotine. This was using the older style ecigs, you had to use a dropper and wet a plastic foam insert to refill them every few 10's of puffs. Now with the new style cigs you can really wholesale the juice, dual coils and tanks with 4-5ml capacity, its easy to go through it. Many people a chain vaping 24mg juice all day, could be problems in the future.

[nightlight]

The only guy I know whose head is currently bobbing in a vat of liquid nitrogen is former Imminst personality and free speech forum namesake William O'Rights.  He was a two pack a day guy, got lung cancer when he was around 40.  But enough of the anecdotes... 

 

He got lung cancer after he ended up in prison (for possession of non-big-pharma drugs) and was forced to abruptly quit smoking. See this post for references (such as paper "Are lung cancers triggered by stopping smoking", also this post about perversely named "recovery period" i.e. abrupt quitting, they found is needed to cause harm to smoking test animals; otherwise the smoking group lives longer which "complicates the analysis") and discussion about lung cancer hazards from abrupt quitting.

Edited by nightlight, 28 August 2014 - 06:32 PM.

[Adamzski]

I did have a bit of a look at what went on with William O'Rights , he was in a bad bike accident and would of had tons of X-rays, he did have a huge trauma from the accident plus going to the big house would be an ordeal. Sudden quitting could be a bad thing, maybe tapering off is better but even if cigs did not cause cancer then no one could claim they give you better lung capacity or improve your life, not many health fanatics or athletes are smoking.

[nightlight]

I did have a bit of a look at what went on with William O'Rights , he was in a bad bike accident and would of had tons of X-rays, he did have a huge trauma from the accident plus going to the big house would be an ordeal. Sudden quitting could be a bad thing, maybe tapering off is better but even if cigs did not cause cancer then no one could claim they give you better lung capacity or improve your life, not many health fanatics or athletes are smoking.

 

He was also a motorcycle hobbyist, inhaling lots of solvents, paints and gasoline fumes while fiddling with his bikes or car exhaust gasses while riding unprotected in the traffic. It is not possible to decouple the underlying web of causes and effects via epidemiology (statistical  correlations on non-randomized samples). Only randomized trials or animal experiments can scientifically disentangle this web of causes end effects and uncover the causal role of the observed links. And indeed they do, but you won't ever hear about any of them from corporate media (not surprising considering the amounts of pharma advertising they do) or your docs or "public health" bureaucracies (obscene taxation of smokers is a bigger industry than big tobacco), since they all went the "wrong" way as the survival graph from a large National Cancer Institute experiments illustrates:

 

[pamojja]

Well, the current paradigm follows exclusively funny epidemiological tracks:

 

The vast majority (80–90%) of cases of lung cancer are due to long-term exposure to tobacco smoke.^[1][2] About 10–15% of cases occur in people, who have never smoked.^[3] These cases are often caused by a combination of genetic factors^[4] and exposure to radon gas,^[4]asbestos,^[5] or other forms of air pollution,^[4] including second-hand smoke.^[6][7]

 

.. Worldwide, lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related death in men and women, and was responsible for 1.56 million deaths annually, as of 2012.^[11]

 

 

So breathers of the biggest air pollution, as from burning fuel due to traffic or heating, have a little reason to rejoice.

 

Better not to calculate and realize the numbers don't add up :

 

According to the 2014 WHO report, air pollution in 2012 caused the deaths of around 7 million people worldwide.^[2]

 

Since anyway nobody wouldn't want to know whats a 4 times worse killer, and having to blame all of us, lets point our fingers to those obvious black smoker lungs!

[Adamzski]

Im living in Seoul, and have lived here for the last 2.5yrs, Its not like China but it can get pretty bad.

 

http://aqicn.org/map/world/

 

Its totally different to Sydney, its rare to have a blue sky

 

Seems like age causes much more cancer than smoking and pollution, except for the Japanese.

When countries get to around a 80 year life expectancy they have around 300 cancers per 100,000 population. 

http://globalcancermap.com/

 

Japanese do live clean lives in every way,

 

They smoke a lot and have been smoking a lot for a long time

 

In 1960 lol smoking was nearly universal http://www.statista....s-uk-and-japan/

 

82% compared to the USA's 52%

 

USA uses double the amount of Diesel fuel per capita http://www.factfish....ion per capita 

 

I dont think just the Japanese diet can explain their lack of lung cancer. Charcoal filters have been ruled out by studies.

 

Must be something

 

 

[niner]

So breathers of the biggest air pollution, as from burning fuel due to traffic or heating, have a little reason to rejoice.

 

Better not to calculate and realize the numbers don't add up :

 

According to the 2014 WHO report, air pollution in 2012 caused the deaths of around 7 million people worldwide.^[2]

 

Since anyway nobody wouldn't want to know whats a 4 times worse killer, and having to blame all of us, lets point our fingers to those obvious black smoker lungs!

 

I think that "air pollution" in this context includes smoke from indoor cooking fires that is responsible for a huge amount of respiratory disease.   We know that having a campfire on your kitchen floor is not going to result in healthy lungs, but just because it kills a lot of people in the third world isn't a very good reason to do something that you know is harmful.