Smoking is... good?

[flashgordonv]

The propaganda and brain washing around the evils of smoking has become so pervasive that many people have switched off their analytical thinking capability and just accept all of the so called data that is served up to them.

I live in New Zealand and we have to suffer the graphic images on cigarette packets. Let's look at some of the claims surrounding those graphic images:
1. Smoking causes gangrene
2. Smoking causes impotence
3. Smoking causes erectile disfunction
4. Smoking causes heart disease
5. Smoking causes lung cancer.

The first thing to remember is that none of these diseases are ONLY supposedly caused by smoking. They are all multi-risk factor diseases. And correlation does not mean causation. But typically if somebody has one of these diseases and they also smoke, then there is an immediate leap to causation. Oh, it must be because of the smoking. This sort of thinking causes a lot of mis diagnosis. Smokers diagnosed with lung cancer who did not have it AND non-smokers with the diseases who were mis diagnosed because they did NOT smoke. There are some good examples in the book by Richard Smith - Smoke Screens.

BUT, far more important is the real live smoking test which started just after the Second World War and runs until today - the baby boomer generation.

In our generation, which started around 1946, we have a world where >70% of men and 35% of women smoked. And they smoked everywhere - in their home and in friends homes, in the car, on the bus, on the train, in the cinema, in the hospital in the doctors waiting room, in the doctors consultation room - they smoked literally EVERYWHERE. And pregnant women smoked as well. So, stop and think about that. This generation has had probably the greatest exposure to smoking in oiur recent history. And yet there WAS a baby boom, the generation was healthy and we do not see all these terrible side effects of smoking manifesting in them or their parents.

If smoking causes erectile dysfunction issues and impotence, how was there a baby boom?
If smoking causes lung cancer, how come this generation is so healthy and long living?
If smoking causes gangrene, why did we not see a generation of gangrenous people missing limbs
And is second hand smoke is so damned dangerous, how come it did not affect the baby boomer generation?
Keep asking these questions about every claim made about tobacco smoking in reference to the baby boomers and the answer is the same. The data does NOT support the hypothesis, ergo the hypothesis is wrong.

So, forget the epidemiological research, the so called expert studies and just LOOK at the longest running real life research. The results, the data from that live test does NOT validate the many ridiculous and frankly hysterical claims made about smoking by the paid shills of the pharmaceutical industry and their brethren, the new puritans who do not wnat anybody to have fun and enjoy themselves unless it is by their strict rules.

 

[Yupo]

1. Smoking causes gangrene
2. Smoking causes impotence
3. Smoking causes erectile disfunction
4. Smoking causes heart disease
5. Smoking causes lung cancer.

1-4 are tied to vascular health. You are correct in that all of these are complex issues, with multi-factoral etiologies. I can't speak to #5 as I have not studied this subject. Perhaps it would be better/more accurate to say that smoking worsens or potentiates these rather grave issues and increases the chance of very poor outcomes.

If smoking causes erectile dysfunction issues and impotence, how was there a baby boom?
If smoking causes lung cancer, how come this generation is so healthy and long living?
If smoking causes gangrene, why did we not see a generation of gangrenous people missing limbs

1. These are later changes associated with long term use. Most parents are relatively young (<40) when producing children. Vascular disease is not unheard of in this population, but it is rare. The vascular constriction (I outlined simple tests for this earlier) factor is completely reversible in early stages. Longer use associated changes, not so much.

2. I can't speak to lung cancer as I said. I don't consider the elderly population to be so healthy. I've never seen so many sick people. My grandparents didn't need a pocket planner to keep up with their doctor visits. Neither did they need to carry around a train case filled with their medications.

3. Have you visited a VA medical center lately? You will find a generation of gangrene and missing limbs there. True, not everyone. And there are very good re-vasularizations and near-heroic wound management systems in place now that are helping cut the rates. But it is a huge problem.

I'm not saying you should quit or that is is all bad. Just have some balance and understand that as with most drugs there is some good and some bad.

 

[flashgordonv]

1. Smoking causes gangrene
2. Smoking causes impotence
3. Smoking causes erectile disfunction
4. Smoking causes heart disease
5. Smoking causes lung cancer.

1. Smoking causes gangrene
2. Smoking causes impotence
3. Smoking causes erectile disfunction
4. Smoking causes heart disease
5. Smoking causes lung cancer.

1-4 are tied to vascular health. You are correct in that all of these are complex issues, with multi-factoral etiologies. I can't speak to #5 as I have not studied this subject. Perhaps it would be better/more accurate to say that smoking worsens or potentiates these rather grave issues and increases the chance of very poor outcomes.

If smoking causes erectile dysfunction issues and impotence, how was there a baby boom?
If smoking causes lung cancer, how come this generation is so healthy and long living?
If smoking causes gangrene, why did we not see a generation of gangrenous people missing limbs

1. These are later changes associated with long term use. Most parents are relatively young (<40) when producing children. Vascular disease is not unheard of in this population, but it is rare. The vascular constriction (I outlined simple tests for this earlier) factor is completely reversible in early stages. Longer use associated changes, not so much.

2. I can't speak to lung cancer as I said. I don't consider the elderly population to be so healthy. I've never seen so many sick people. My grandparents didn't need a pocket planner to keep up with their doctor visits. Neither did they need to carry around a train case filled with their medications.

3. Have you visited a VA medical center lately? You will find a generation of gangrene and missing limbs there. True, not everyone. And there are very good re-vasularizations and near-heroic wound management systems in place now that are helping cut the rates. But it is a huge problem.

I'm not saying you should quit or that is is all bad. Just have some balance and understand that as with most drugs there is some good and some bad.

Perhaps it would be better/more accurate to say that smoking worsens or potentiates these rather grave issues and increases the chance of very poor outcomes.

If smoking causes erectile dysfunction issues and impotence, how was there a baby boom?
If smoking causes lung cancer, how come this generation is so healthy and long living?
If smoking causes gangrene, why did we not see a generation of gangrenous people missing limbs

1. These are later changes associated with long term use. Most parents are relatively young (<40) when producing children. Vascular disease is not unheard of in this population, but it is rare. The vascular constriction (I outlined simple tests for this earlier) factor is completely reversible in early stages. Longer use associated changes, not so much.

2. I can't speak to lung cancer as I said. I don't consider the elderly population to be so healthy. I've never seen so many sick people. My grandparents didn't need a pocket planner to keep up with their doctor visits. Neither did they need to carry around a train case filled with their medications.

3. Have you visited a VA medical center lately? You will find a generation of gangrene and missing limbs there. True, not everyone. And there are very good re-vasularizations and near-heroic wound management systems in place now that are helping cut the rates. But it is a huge problem.

I'm not saying you should quit or that is is all bad. Just have some balance and understand that as with most drugs there is some good and some bad.

Yupo, I am not going to argue you point by point because there is no point. Seeing what you have written, I can state with certainty that you have not done us the courtesy of reading this thread or reading the documentation referenced in this thread. What we are presenting goes against your beliefs and I suspect you are suffering from cognitive dissonance.

What you appear to be doing is trying to show us how we poor ignorant non-medical folk are deluded when it come to smoking, how you and conventional medicine know best and that we should get with the program, accept smoking is harmful (after all you have told us this and given us some tests to prove it) and stop immediately so we may be able to live long healthy lives. If you bothered to read the thread you would have seen many posts from our resident medical specialist, Gaby, much data on the health benefits of smoking, how junk science is used to trash tobacco. You would have also seen that we focus here on presenting truth backed with evidence. The brainwashing of the population in general and GPs in particular has been going on for a long time and it seems to me that you have fallen very strongly under that spell.

But, this forum is dedicated to research, to attempting to join the dots and work out what the hell is going on on planet earth. And one of those exercises relates to smoking. If there is such a huge push to stop people smoking and to stigmatize it and stamp it out, there must be a damned good reason for it. And no, it is not because the kindly and altruistic powers that be want us to be healthy.

So please, just stop, read the many articles you have been referred to, try to look at the data without your "smoking is the most dangerous thing in the world" glasses and see if you can join the dots on this subject.

 

[Yupo]

So please, just stop, read the many articles you have been referred to, try to look at the data without your "smoking is the most dangerous thing in the world" glasses and see if you can join the dots on this subject.

I will stop. If you don't find what I have shared to be useful, ignore it. I am not disappointed that you don't find this interesting or useful. I am seriously disappointed in that I thought this was a forum for networking and learning as much as possible, which generally means looking without bias at all sides of a subject. I see there is little chance of having an open, balanced conversation on this subject. If I learn that I am wrong about what I have posted here, I will say so.

 

[flashgordonv]

So please, just stop, read the many articles you have been referred to, try to look at the data without your "smoking is the most dangerous thing in the world" glasses and see if you can join the dots on this subject.

I will stop. If you don't find what I have shared to be useful, ignore it. I am not disappointed that you don't find this interesting or useful. I am seriously disappointed in that I thought this was a forum for networking and learning as much as possible, which generally means looking without bias at all sides of a subject. I see there is little chance of having an open, balanced conversation on this subject. If I learn that I am wrong about what I have posted here, I will say so.

So, did you read the articles you were referred to? Or are you just going to stop because your opinion has not been wholeheartedly embraced. An open, balanced conversation surely requires you to get up to speed on what is being said here about smoking - you know, the other side of the conversation. You want to look at the subject without bias, but you do not recognise your own bias, it seems.

 

[Yupo]

https://www.sott.net/article/314032-White-bread-bagels-increase-risk-of-lung-cancer-by-49-percent-with-non-smokers-more-at-risk-study-finds
https://www.sott.net/article/139304-Lets-All-Light-Up
https://www.sott.net/article/232039-5-Health-Benefits-of-Smoking%20Page
https://www.sott.net/article/234316-Freedom-of-Association-Smoking-and-Psychopathy
https://www.sott.net/article/221013-Health-Benefits-of-Smoking-Tobacco%20Page%203%20of
https://www.sott.net/article/228189-New-Light-on-the-Black-Death-The-Viral-and-Cosmic-Connection
https://www.sott.net/article/254745-Nicotine-The-Zombie-Antidote
https://www.sott.net/article/234667-Pestilence-the-Great-Plague-and-the-Tobacco-Cure
http://joequinn.net/2012/10/09/comets-plagues-tobacco-and-the-origin-of-life-on-earth/
https://www.sott.net/article/280903-Lets-all-light-up-What-you-dont-know-about-tobacco
https://www.sott.net/article/194853-Health-fear-over-trendy-cigarettes-substitute
https://www.sott.net/article/242547-Study-of-miners-exposed-to-diesel-finds-smokers-were-far-LESS-likely-to-develop-lung-cancer
https://www.sott.net/article/232039-5-Health-Benefits-of-Smoking
https://www.sott.net/article/138559-Nicotine-helps-Alzheimers-and-Parkinsons-Patients
https://www.sott.net/article/315356-The-epidemic-of-junk-science-in-tobacco-smoking-research
https://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,84.msg638326.html#msg638326

No, in one hour I have not read all 165 pages or reviewed any of any studies that might be mentioned in the thread, aside from list above. If it is the above quoted list you refer to, I have read many of them on SOTT over the time I have been reading SOTT, but I can't say for sure that I have read all of them. I will read them this evening. I will post on here if I find something that refutes my postings on the subject.

 

[Yupo]

I read all of the articles. I found nothing to contradict what I wrote.

 

[Mikey]

I read all of the articles. I found nothing to contradict what I wrote.

Everything is toxic to various extents, even water and oxygen, and smoking is certainly not excluded. It's not so much about contradicting. The point is to learn about positive and negative aspects of everything, explore the gray areas, put everything into perspective (context!), and then make more informed personal choices, while accepting the choices of others.

 

[Gaby]

I read all of the articles. I found nothing to contradict what I wrote.

Yupo, understand that the programming goes deep, specially if you work on the field.

It took me a good 9 years to finally accept totally that there is an elephant in the room of smoking research. Keep in mind that I had an opened mind and always accepted a different point of view wholeheartedly right from the beginning, on year zero. Otherwise, with the level of my programming, it would have been impossible.

In short, it has certainly not being a weekend process. When you are so deeply programmed, then you should count your blessings of sharing a path with those who are not so programmed and who can offer you a fresh perspective.

When I finally re-visited the medical system through my family medicine rotation program, which included intensive studies of every single subject on medicine before doing the rotations and an accumulated 9 years of health related research here on this forum and through the Cassiopaean website, I finally understood.

My eureka moment:

Nicotine - The Zombie Antidote
https://www.sott.net/article/254745-Nicotine-The-Zombie-Antidote

Year 9 was back in 2012. Better late than never!

 

[Yupo]

Gaby, are you saying that there are no deleterious peripheral vascular effects from cigarette smoking, and that my continued belief that there are is nothing but programming? I am happy to look at any studies that will demonstrate that my belief is wrong.

It appears to me that there is a lot of black/white thinking on the subject; all terrible or all wonderful. I think my view is balanced. In the articles I read and reread last night, I learned one new thing: about benefits relating to fibroid tumors. One study I just threw out as it centered around something done on rodents that would never be done on humans, although the subject was interesting to me (not applicable to our conversation). And one article had something that appeared (to me) to confuse or relate Nicotinic acid (a vasodilator) with Nicotine (a vasoconstrictor). These are not the same molecule and are not even chemically related, although the names are very similar.

I have no issue with there being many benefits to smoking, which is totally against what I was taught. I have no issue with there being a huge load of junk science in publication.

 

[Keyhole]

I can understand where you are coming from Yupo. However, I think its important to remember that any possible deleterious effects probably manifest in those individuals who are not genetically predisposed toward a compatability with regular tobacco consumption. From what the research suggests, and what the C's have said, it would probably be wise to conclude that tobacco probably only benefits SOME people, and not all people. I recall the link between smoking and crohns disease, in which it increases the chances be a LOT. Whereas with a similar pathology, ulcerative collitis, smoking decreases the chances by like 10fold. This could be related to some form of genetic compatability.

What must be considered is that the majority of the oldest people in the world were/are HEAVY smokers. From what I understand, smoking facilitates SIRT gene expression which has been closely coupled with increased/more efficient mitochondrial function. After all, mitochondrial function is the main determinant in health and longevity. Therefore, it may be safe to assume that any experimentally observed "deleterious" effects are likely 'buffered' and rendered benign by such an increase in mitichondrial efficiency.

 

[Gaby]

Gaby, are you saying that there are no deleterious peripheral vascular effects from cigarette smoking, and that my continued belief that there are is nothing but programming?

Let me re-phrase it to offer another view.

In perspective, the role of tobacco is overblown and not truly representative of the mechanisms of disease. Even Buerger's disease, which at some point I thought could be a sensitivity to tobacco, is not so cut and dry. The disease itself speaks of an inflammatory response run amok. It is actually interesting that a stealth infection (Rickettsia) has been proposed as a possible causative factor.

When you are used to think in "chemicals and the body's response to chemicals" terms (as per Big Pharma influence), it really does help to step outside and see the whole picture. You might see the effect of a drug (i.e. an extract of tobacco) in a vessel, but that doesn't necessarily explain the mechanism of the disease, much less its root problem.

 

[Yupo]

Interesting about Buerger's, did not know that. Thanks.

There is evidence that high dose vitamin C can reduce the destructive endothelial effects. If an ice age comes or you live in a similarly harsh environment, please just consider that the vasoconstriction might actually happen. If someone is prone to this effect (as I suggested simple self-testing for), then the knowledge of this can possibly protect one from frostbite (by timing exposure to cold when least affected with vasoconstriction), or by taking other precautions.

I will endeavor to keep an open mind on this and all subjects. My intention is to help the community, not to argue.

 

[Gaby]

There is evidence that high dose vitamin C can reduce the destructive endothelial effects. If an ice age comes or you live in a similarly harsh environment, please just consider that the vasoconstriction might actually happen. If someone is prone to this effect (as I suggested simple self-testing for), then the knowledge of this can possibly protect one from frostbite (by timing exposure to cold when least affected with vasoconstriction), or by taking other precautions.

I will endeavor to keep an open mind on this and all subjects. My intention is to help the community, not to argue.

Which reminds me of something I meant to review on DMSO. Here is some information about it and frostbites:

https://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=17014.160;wap2

Before freedom in DMSO research was withdrawn, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Forrest Riordan saw DMSO save a frostbite patient's limbs. Arriving home after midnight on a -15 degree F night, a 59-year-old woman slipped on the ice outside her garage, hit her head, lost consciousness, and lay beside her car for six hours. By the time Dr. Riordan saw her, her feet and hands were purple, and her fingers were turning black. Having already treated 50 patients with DMSO and being aware of its use in preserving and restoring tissue, Dr. Riordan decided to give it a try. Pat McGrady describes what happened. "The question was, would DMSO give new life to the lady's dying fingers and restore blood to her limbs? Ten minutes after Riordan had swabbed DMSO on the patient's hands and lower legs, the treated areas reddened with the return of blood. The DMSO odor was on her breath, showing that the drug was permeating the woman's system. On the second day, blisters had popped out on the frozen areas and that evening she regained consciousness... On the third day, sensation began returning to some of the toes and later the tips of the fingers began to have feeling again. By Day Seven, she was able to flex her joints. For an entire month, the patient was sloshed, swabbed, and dabbed with DMSO. Almost a gallon of it was used, but side effects amounted only to an occasional rash, a bit of burning and itching... By Day Fourteen, it was clear that all tissues were viable... Riordan concluded that the drug should be applied within 12 hours of freezing and that 24 hours may mark the critical point in reversing damage to the involved blood vessels".

 

[Yupo]

Great information, thanks.