I think “Smoking kills!” is more accurate than any other possible “____ kills!” statement. The only thing comparable I can think of is weight and lack of exercise. Any number of things that are rightfully thought of as health and/or death risks kill much fewer people than smoking.
By the same token, the human body fails with age and since smokers die younger they avoid some of the pitfalls of advanced age.
Insurance companies.
We got rid of all the crappy shit that comes along with smoking but insurance premiums still go up. We never saw a societal dividend for quitting smoking.
Can be? Do you have any factual evidence for that claim? I know of one study that found no differences.
Not exactly a great argument. The data shows less quality of life in the years before dying for smokers than non-smokers.
According to the CDC, the number of years lost to smoking is **at least **10.
That is in addition to lost quality of life towards the end of life, so you’ll on average be comparing a fairly OK 67-year old non-smoker with a smoker in his last year of life.
Funny how when there is money at stake so much argumentation goes away. Nearly every life-insurance policy I’ve been offered comes at a “non-tobacco” price and a significantly higher “tobacco” price, even if no other underwriting work is done.
If life insurance companies ask only one question to adjust their estimated probability of your death, it is “do you smoke”.
Yes it is quite bad. I’m sure, like with everything, you can point to media events that overstate even the quite detrimental effects of smoking. But the real focus should be on the science, which when taken as a whole, correctly states how bad smoking is for you. I have seen no meta-studies or modern line of research findings suggesting that the earlier science overstated the negative impacts of smoking, such as what arguably happened with saturated fat in the 90s.
Now what the science doesn’t say, is that there is a 1:1 connection between smoking and dying. There are people that smoke a bunch and still live a long life with minimal health results. But these are the exception, not the rule.
I have heard the cigars are not as bad for you for this or that reason, but I have not looked up whether this is just folk knowledge or scientific fact. But is smoking, cigars or otherwise, once a year less bad than smoking a pack a day for a year? Most assuredly.
I’ve heard that stat too, and math is not my strong suit. But it is confusing to me.
I’ve read total elimination of cardiovascular disease will add about 5-7 years to human life expectancy. I’ve also read total elimination of cancer will add about 3 years. The combined value of eliminating both is maybe 7-8 years due to overlap.
So if most smoking deaths are due to increased risk of vascular disease or lung cancer, how can smoking have more impact on life expectancy than the total elimination of all forms of vascular disease and cancer? Is it because years of life lost are not the same as years of life gained? Or because those years of life lost are in your 70s, and the years gained are in your 80s, and the human body fails with age so a year of life at 85 is harder to obtain and maintain than a year at 75, etc?
I would like to know precisely how you come to this conclusion.
I think if you actually knew any person who suffered from years of debilitating, smoking-related illness before they died, you’d change your tune pretty fucking quick.
I believe it is because both cardiovascular disease and cancer are more frequent in smokers than in other people. Hence they lose more years to it than a non-smoking group.
For example, imagine a group of people characterized by a mutation that makes them extremely susceptible to cancer, with an average lifespan of about 38. If you could discover a way to cure that susceptibility, they would gain about 40 years of average lifespan. While cancer would still only subtract 3 years from the overall population.
I find your condescension insulting. I’ve met smokers and non smokers. Are the non smokers who live to 86 and end up in a nursing home for three years or the person who lives long enough to develop alzheimers disease really better off than the person who died in seven months from lung cancer? By age 85 almost half of people have alzheimers disease, that is only 20% for people age 80.
Staying alive as long as possible is not always a laudable goal. The body fails with age and everyone gets sick and dies in this life. I don’t know a ton about it, but morbidity is more important to me than mortality, especially when mortality just means dying at 79 instead of 82.
Yes but heart disease and cancer are far and away the top two killers.
Stroke is in the top five, but not as big. Either way the combo of heart disease, cancer and stroke makes up about ~60% of all causes of death. So it isn’t just smokers who die from these disorders.
My point fundamentally is I do not think dying at 78 from lung cancer is a travesty but living to 85 and developing alzheimers or ending up totally disabled is a success. The body fails with age, the longer you live the more parts of it will fail.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954611103914466
I don’t understand your point. Smoking is a direct factor in causing heart disease, cancer and stroke. It knocks off 10 years of life expectancy AND makes those end years much much much worse. A recent Swedish study found that 50% of smokers will develop COPD. COPD is a horrible horrible way to go; you basically slowly drown in your own lung secretions over a period of months/years until you die.
An anonymous doctor with a nicotine addiction as a “cite”?
Yes, smoking is that bad - and if someone lived to the ripe old age of 90 while being a chain smoker, they’re probably an anomaly who would have lived even longer without cigarettes.
There’s been studies that find that the quality of life of a non-smoking 86 year old is roughly equivalent to a 71 year old smoker.
I’m pretty sure you don’t know much about it, which is why I asked the question of why you think that smokers are getting some kind of mild benefit from dying younger, which you seem to think means dying quicker. I think staying healthy is a laudable goal, and as a general rule, smokers will have a significantly fewer healthy years.
You understand the distinction?
Only 67% of smokers will die of a smoking-related illness. That means that one-third of all smokers will die of something unrelated, which explains George Burns, and your chain-smoking grandma who lived to 93.
But that also means that if you smoke, there is a two-in-three chance that it will cause your death. Does it really make sense to do something that kills two out of every three people who do it?
You mean, is there any real significant harm in lighting up one cigar a year? No.
Since cigars and pipes arent inhaled, you can likely smoke one a day, as long as your dentist checks you mouth twice a year.
But is smoking two packs of ciggies daily deadly? Yes, very.
Yes, some people survive into their 80s even while being smokers. Some people survive playing Russian roulette. A couple of people have survived falling out of a airplane without a parachute. Doesnt mean it’s safe.
Hardly, got a cite?
No, nicotine has possible benefits. Smoking has none.
Piling on the tobacco companies?
Trust me, your one cigar a year, isn’t keeping them in business.