Here’s the link: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3013/whats-worse-for-your-health-bacon-or-cigarettes
This column says that a smoking pack a day of cigarettes increases your risk of death by 202 percent. That doesn’t make any sense - your risk of death is 100% anyway, and I don’t see how it can get any higher. I think he may have meant the risk within a given time period or something, but the way it’s worded it is really unclear.
Also, the thread title was supposed to say “smokes”, not “smoke”. 
The same question occurred to me when I read the column. An X percent chance of dying by when?
The column claims that the risk of smoking a pack of cigarettes per day carries the same risk as that of eating 176 slices of bacon per day. As the column itself says: “nobody does the latter”. Yet there are millions of smokers who have smoked a pack a day for 30-40 years.
Find a few million non-smokers who have eaten 176 slices of bacon daily (about 6 lbs of thin-sliced bacon and over 10 lbs of thick-sliced) for 30-40 years and then we can revisit these statistics.
The column has a 202% chance of being wrong, IMHO, based on a variety of factors, not the least of which is no indication of time bounds on the results, but also genetics, luck, known and unknown unknowns, etc.
It’s the “risk of dying prematurely due to smoking related diseases.” So you’re a little more than three times as likely to die prematurely if you smoke a pack a day. In the 80s there was a big argument over whether the nitrosamines formed from eating bacon and other cured meats significantly elevated your cancer risk; a professor at Michigan State told me there was something like 18 times more nitrosamine in a cigarette, A cigarette, than in two strips of bacon.
Manduck, think this way: at any given time, you have a certain likelihood, or risk, of dying right then. This likelihood is dependent upon everything from risk of heart attack, or stroke, to risk of lightning strike, to risk of getting hit on the head by an asteroid, to getting eaten by a rampaging dinosaur that was conjured up in a biolab from ancient DNA and then escaped from the confines through a random turn of poor planning and sabotage.
Suppose your risk of dying from a cardiac event is 0.007%. A 200% increase in your risk of dying means your risk increases from 0.007% to 0.021%. That 200% greater risk. It’s measured against whatever your prior risk level was. You can set the nominal “non smoker” at 1 and then say if he smokes a pack a day, his risk is now 3. That’s 200% greater.
I think a larger problem is the mixing of statistics that mean different things and try to equate the relationships. For example, the discussion of statistics in the cholesterol part are talking about your lifetime risk. Your lifetime risk of developing heart disease goes up 12 to 14% when your serum cholesterol goes up by 6 yo 7%. Fine, but the next statistic is then about decreasing dietary cholesterol reducing your risk of death by 37%. That statistic isn’t particularly clear. Is that instantaneous risk, or risk of death from cardiovascular issues across your lifetime? In other words, you are still 100% certain to die, but your death is less likely to be from cardiovascular issues, which means more likely to be from a car accident, or kidney failure, or getting hit over the head by a jealous lover. Because that piece of the risk pie has to go somewhere.
Then flipping that, which Cecil admits probably isn’t kosher, and then projecting downward a linear relationship for the increase of serum cholesterol to the risk of death (which likely isn’t accurate), to conclude eating six strips of bacon increases serum cholesterol by 22 mg/1000 kcal, and thereby increase risk of death by cardiovascular problems by 4%.
And what does 22 mg/1000 kcal mean? Is that 1000 kcal of bacon? Overall diet? Where does that number come from? The reduction of 200 mg per 1000 kcal is a whole dietary number. It isn’t food specific. So how does 6 sticks of bacon become a per entire food intake basis?
It’s an interesting thought piece, and amusing to think about, but I agree, I wouldn’t want to defend any of this to a PhD committee, either.
Genetics trumps almost any other factor in questions of longevity. Someone may smoke a pack a day, eat bacon galore, and live into their 90’s while someone else who eats healthy and doesn’t smoke could die “naturally” of old age at 76. **
gjdodger **says the qualification is based on dying “prematurely” but there is no defined lifespan for anyone. **Irishman **believes it is based on a percentage of all the factors going into deciding if you will die right now, this minute. But neither of the bad habits in discussion here would have any effects on your health on a one-off basis. Eating 1 piece of bacon, or smoking 1 cigarette is a very different question than having 1 of each every day for 50 years. So are we saying the 202% increased chance is based on some amount of time, or after smoking 1 cigarette and eating 1 piece of bacon? Would it be a 3% increase the first year, and 24% after 10 years, and finally reach the 202% mark after 40 years?
I would also note that it’s difficult to quantify the amount of nitrites which result from eating bacon, as more fully detailed (along with a good argument for not worrying about eating bacon in the first place) in this item by Michael Ruhlman. Admittedly, not a scientist, but the man does know a bit about meats.
Gotcha covered.
Bacon isn’t addictive?
Bacon isn’t addictive?
That’s what YOU think! 
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM Bacon. 
I don’t know the specifics of the studies that Cecil cited, but mortality studies are general based on age groups and time periods. Thus, you have a group of people, you split them into five-year age groupings (25 - 29, 30 - 34, etc) and for each age group, you compare: [the number from that group that are alive ten years later] vs [standard/expected mortality rates.] Or, depending on your study, compared to a control group. However, standard/expected mortality rates are readily available and have been studied by actuaries for a lonnnng time.
Thus, the term “increased risk of death by 2%” is shorthand for “increased rate of mortality within the following age groups, over an N year period, by 2%.”
My understanding is that a footnote is going to be added to the Column in question, covering this point.
I remember hearing or reading that the major factors governing a long life are:
Genetic explains the 30 year old health nut keeling over and the smoking bacon eating couch potato living to 100.
There are a lot of bad things in cigarette smoke. Lots of the chemicals that are bad are put there by man in the growing, processing, and preserving of the tobacco. I can give you a lot of bad stuff about tobacco but this article will address the positive effects. Tobacco can deter anger in people. Tobacco smoke not only kills us it kills almost any bacteria including anthrax. This was well known during WWII. Some people can have a problem taking niacin off of food or can’t process the niacinamide in meats. The plant version of niacin, Nicotinic Acid, can be used instead. The body needs Niacin to make energy and to think correctly. If we can’t get it through digestion we can get it through the air or the back of the mouth where there are receptors. If people can’t intake niacin they get varying degrees of Pallagra. Pallagra doesn’t have to be sickening to effect our minds and health. Many people throughout the world have mild cases but don’t know. Nicotinic acid is part of NAD. It also stimulates the brown fat to create Beta waves which metabolizes white fat in our bodies. Most medicines don’t work well with Niacin though so the medical industry picks on it. It was considered one of the panceas about fifty years ago, but too much is no good either. If you are overly high in Potassium, the antidote is Nicotinic acid. If you are drinking, Niacin can cancel out some of alcohols toxic effect and also cancels out Methyl overindulgence. I am only opening you’re mind, I am not recomending anyone smoke but am saying there could be a reason some people smoke. Ncotine sensors in our brain are directly related to intelligence and health. There are other better ways to get Nicotinic acid if you need it, it’s in oranges and nuts and in dandilions and any nightingshade family members. Never assume that what you know is real, our perception of reality has been distorted throughout history. I do not suggest in this article that anyone smoke, but I do suggest that you know a little about the various ways our body creates energy.
I’m not sure, but I think Rickymouse has been smoking something other than bacon and/or tobacco.
And could you please provide some CITES?
I used to keep track of the sites to have proof of what I was saying. I’ve been researching all sorts of things and the favorites started getting cluttered and overwhelming so I dumped them after verifying their content and comparing them with other sciences. Try googling what I said in each part and you will find that what I say is mostly true. I do not quote anyone else because that is protected intellectual knowledge and I do not like to post sites unless I get the permission of the site creator. What I learn and deduct becomes mine. I have read at least thirty thousand articles from different sources and have read some scientific journals. I see problems with the way people interpret the evidence all the time and they even list the journal entries as proof. I am in no way saying that cigarette smoking is good, but I am saying that there are sometimes reasons that we subconsciously do things. Smoking cigarettes itself causes people to not take niacin in from foods because the body senses a surplus of it in the blood. I can go on and on. You’re lucky this wasn’t about booze, because I know many things that drinking is an antidote for. I see a world that thinks things are not real unless it is verified by those with credentials or degrees. I make it a point to study the research of the medical and Pharmacutical industry and translate it into every day talk.
That is a lot of reading. At an article a minute it would take over 2 months assuming 8 hour days without breaks. It takes me a lot longer than a minute to read and absorb peer-reviewed articles. Out of curiosity, where did that number come from?
I’m retired and have a crazy deranged desire to learn about things. I spend about eight hours a day researching anything from dinosaurs to rocks and artifacts to ancient writings to medicines. I get inspiration from Sciencedaily and other places and follow trails to try to see what others have said about things previous to science’s proving them. I’ve been doing the eight hours a day/7 days a week for about two years now and before that I was averaging about 4 hours a day for another four years. Most articles can be read within a five minutes and to digest it it takes another 10 to 20 minutes of follow up research to verify it. I have read way more than thirty thousand articles but some of that was rereading the articles to see if my perception of the content had changed with my increase in knowledge. That happens often when you read conflicting or varying interpretations of things by different people. Most people don’t have the time or interest so it seems excessively impossible to them. I usually don’t like to read books. Most people have excellent knowledge of about 10 percent of the book and try to fill the pages with something that they are not experts at, relying on input from others which they did not personally think over or “digest”. You’de be surprised how many people percieve things as different as they really are. Upon studying why they percieve it that way you see that something steers their thinking and that others believe the same way. That’s OK I guess, it makes the world interesting.
After reading the column, calculations, and comments, I am wondering how I might best shorten my life.
I am trying to envision bacon that is smoking as it is eating a potato on a couch, or something.
Define “best”. There are various methods to shorten it immediately, like a bullet to the brain, a highspeed collision with a concrete pillar, decapitation, etc. I wouldn’t recommend them, but those are probably the fastest acting methods.
Alternately, for “best” you could go with enjoy doing what you enjoy and live with the consequences, including shorter life, long term health effects, etc.