So far, the research I’ve done on this topic hasn’t been particularly conclusive; I’ve heard conflicting opinions from almost all sources.
Firstly, which are worse for one’s health: cigars or cigarettes?
I understand the answer would require the circumstances. So here they are: a middle aged (late forties), non-overweight, healthy man who excercises regularly, smokes five cigars/cigarettes a week. Which of the two would be worse for his health? (ie. increase the possibility of cancer, heart attacks, strokes, etc, the most)? What kind of odds would we be talking about here?
For example, using completely made up figures: ‘Cancer for a non-smoker: 1-1, Cancer for a cigar-smoker: 50-1, Cancer for a cigarette smoker: 60-1’.
So, simplified: Which of the two would be more damaging to this man’s health, and by what odds (using a normal, healthy non-smoker as a comparison)?
Sorry, I thought I should elaborate on ‘cigars’: I don’t mean the big, fat ones Winston Churchill is always pictured smoking, I mean the Hamlet ones that are the same width as cigarettes and about 1 and a half times the length. And I’m assuming the subject would inhale both.
Seems to me you are asking to choose between death by hanging or death by firing squad.
Why not just quit, save the money you would normally spend on tobacco and at the end of the year buy yourself a gift of life - a trip, something you’ve always wanted, etc.?
You should have quite a few year end celebrations if you quit.
The biggest difference is that cigarettes are filtered, cutting down the tar and maximum nicotine etc. That alone would make the cigars worse. Additionally, Hamlet probably contains twice as much tobacco as a cigarette.
Of course, if you don’t inhale the cigar, you just leave yourself at risk of oral cancer etc… But some research (lost reference) shows that people who just smoke cigars/pipes tend to not inhale, but ex-cigarette smokers tend to inhale (whatever they say to others and themselves.) Trust me, I told this lie to myself for years;) .
I quite agree. We’re actually not talking about me here - I’d never touch the stuff, in any form. But the person we are talking about seems to believe cigars aren’t as harmful to his health as cigarettes, and uses that to explain why him smoking isn’t so bad (“At least they aren’t cigarettes”).
We generally hear that cigar smoking is less harmful than cigarette smoking. However, that statement is based upon certain assumptions, often unstated. Among them:
An average cigarette smoker might smoke a pack a day (20 cigs). An average cigar smoker is more likey in the 5-10 per week category (I’m guessing here).
Cigars are not meant to be inhaled, and many (most?) cigar smokers don’t inhale. Cigarettes use tobacco specially cured to provide the nicotine hit with inhaling, and virtually no cigarette smokers fail to inhale.
There are a lot more cigarette smokers than cigar smokers.
It seems to me, common sense-wise, that smoking these cigars is going to be worse for one’s health than smoking the SAME number of cigarettes, assuming they’re inhaled. I think that’s a pretty safe assumption, as Pjen mentioned. Still, the health effects of 5 cigarettes a week is probably barely distinguishable from not smoking at all. I doubt that 5 of these cigars per week is significantly worse.
I agree, if all things are equal up to and including the question of whether the subject inhales, then cigars would be much worse for you than cigarettes. From what I’ve heard and read on the subject, cigars can pose a serious risk of lip, mouth, or nose cancer–basically anywhere the smoke touches. Sigmund Freud, who smoked cigars, had such a bad case of mouth cancer that part of his lower jaw had to be removed.
On the other hand, the smoking habits of cigarette vs. cigar consumers differ so widely I don’t think it’s fair to make the same assumptions for both. I don’t think most cigar smokers indulge with the same frequency or duration of most cigarette smokers.
Okay, here’s the Straight Dope on the cancer risk from cigars. I know what I’m talking about here, because I smoke cigars occasionally and spent a lot of time studying the literature before I could convince myself that the risk was reasonable.
Studies of European cigar smokers have shown incidence of lung cancer that was a significant percentage of the incidence for cigaratte smoking. Similar studies on U.S. smoker found almost no risk of lung cancer (on the order of 1-2% of the risk from cigarette smoking, which is almost within the noise floor for non-smokers). The risks of oral cancers were about the same as for cigarettes, but it should be pointed out that oral cancers make up a pretty small percentage of the total cancer risk from smoking.
Anyway, the discrepancy between the two classes of studies comes down to this: European cigar smokers generally inhale, and they generally smoke more than 10 cigars a week. In contrast, American cigar smokers typically don’t inhale, and typically don’t smoke more than 4-5 cigars a week.
So, if you’re going to smoke cigars, don’t inhale. You don’t need to, anyway, because cigar smoke is high in sugars and you will absorb the nicotine through the mucous membranes in the mouth.
If you limit your cigar smoking to a handful a week or less, and don’t inhale, you have a slightly increased risk of oral cancer, and almost no additional risk of lung cancer. There are lots of things you probably eat that have a bigger carcinogenic effect than the occasional cigar.
