I agree if it was going to be done at all, the column should attempt to determine the health impact of 20 cigarettes per day vs. 3 bacon strips per day and leave it at that. Cigarettes would be considered far more dangerous overall, and that is the conclusion the column arrived at anyway, even if using questionable methodology.
The problem is that no matter what scale we look at the question, the two things just can’t really compare in terms of their actual, measurable impacts on mortality. The mortality reports used for the column were not produced with such a comparison in mind for one thing. I would bet that the smokers in the smoking mortality reports also ate bacon and other high sodium/fat/nitrate type foods at times, and that those who died of heart disease, sodium, cholestrol, etc. also sometimes smoked cigarettes. That one flaw makes any conclusions reached using those reports invalid for this comparison. While almost all smoking related illness comes from smoking, not even close to all sodium, fat, nitrate, nitrite, cholesterol, obesity, etc. illness comes from bacon specifically, but the column approaches the question as though they do.
If tobacco or high sodium diets killed people sooner, in their 20s or 30’s, we could draw some much clearer comparisons despite all this. But it takes most of a lifetime to find out the last 10% or 20% might be cut short by these bad habits. Causes of death are usually the sum of a bunch of factors over a lifetime - genetics, environment, economic status, access to medical care, plain luck and many other things (including smoking and bacon). They all contribute to exactly when each one of us will find our own spot on a mortality report, and which box it is that will be checked. To really make this comparison all these other factors would have to be accounted for with each and every individual of the millions counted in those mortality reports.
In a very general way we can safely say, even without **Cecil’s **help on this one I dare say, that smoking cigarettes in reasonable portions is more unhealthy than eating bacon in reasonable portions. That is as specific as the comparison can be without a far more detailed and complex study than just comparing mortality rates for illnesses generally thought to be associated with one habit or the other.
I’ll just keep smoking my half pack of cigarettes a day and eating a rash of bacon occasionally. The time I will be losing is the time at the end of my life, when living in the nursing home with the other old people who can’t go fishing anymore or remember their life.
The negative effects of obesity are severely exacerbated by smoking. Again, it is not a simple matter of adding together their relative risk factors mathematically, it’s something like 6-11 times the risk. Here’s some interesting reading:
obesity and smoking:
obesity dangers vs smoking, drinking, poverty (other than cancer)
Also, I’m glad someone else said it before I did. At “normal rates of consumption”, I think Cecil’s argument holds up extremely well.
There seems to be an assumption in this thread that eating too much bacon will make you fat. I don’t think that is true. Contrary to popular belief, a calorie is not a calorie. All the Adkins-like diets corroborate this. When you cut fat from your diet you invariably substitute carbs, including sugar - (e.g. SnackWells cookies). Carbs are far, far worse than fat. Excess carbohydrate intake is probably the main culprit in the “Western Diet” that is associated with the western diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
@ Cyfred: Ohhhhhhhhhhhh no you don’t, sir. Increased caloric intake + no increase in daily activity = weight gain. I’m not going to veer off into a discussion of the merits/demerits of the Atkins and Atkins-type diets, but I’ll not suffer the idea that (all other factors being equal) higher caloric consumption won’t make you fat.
Some people can metabolize fat into ketones that can be used by the body and they can eat fats and still be skinny. I also know people that can eat sweets and carbohydrates as 60% of their diets and be skinny and have great regenerative abilities. I know people who seem fat and have a lot of strength and energy. I also know small skinny people with seemingly no muscle that can outlift a weight lifter. It all depends on how our bodies individually process chemicals.
I tempted myself by thinking like that by weighing up the pros and cons of exercising. I thought: I’m dyspraxic, I’m more likely to put myself in immediate danger by exercising whereas living an indolent lifestyle I’d just be shaving years off my life. But I’d be at increased risk of stroke, heart attack and probably some form of cancer or other and those aren’t ways I particularly want to go.
As for whether the comparison is valid: too many confounding variables an individual level, but in terms of describing populations, yes. If one doesn’t get too hung up on the “daily” aspect, one could compare the total amount of noxious substances consumed and the lifespan of a person. Usually in doing so, a factor analysis is performed and the significance when accounting for multiple independent variables (such as both smoking and being obese) can be performed.
As for the people that smoke and drink and are obese and live for ages: I’d say that’s a spotlight fallacy. They’re anomalies: the effects of obesity and excessive alcohol consumption and smoking on the population are well known, they just might not hold true for every individual.
Every time I see or hear something I don’t understand I try to research it and find what it is. dyspraxic people share many symptoms with other conditions I am researching. It doesn’t sound like a fun condition to have and can have many causes also. Our bodies encounter many toxins in our lifetimes that cause damage to the intestines taking up proper nutrients in the right proportion. Everyone on this planet is also allergic to something. You’re condition probably is not a condition that has origions in those last statements so it probably may have been caused by head trauma, a biofeedback nerve sending scrambling signals to the brain, or a hereditary problem triggered by the presence of some chemistry that triggered something to change. Sometimes our bodies cannot take magnesium or sulfate in as we age but still can take it in through the skin. try soaking you’re feet in epsom salts. Magnesium dificiency can cause gate abnormalities. I will research it more just for my own curiosity and compare it with other conditions to see if there are possible overlaps in symptoms. Have you got any back problems or anything that can be pinching a nerve and causing kaotic feedback? Only you can solve this problem because it’s an individual situation, I may be able to get started by firing you up. The secrets in you’re past.
All this research is nothing but crap. No offense, but a bacon is as a food would have its effect according to where you are staying. Places like cold region like Russia, Alaska etc are places where eating loads of food is beneficial. But it would have bad effect if people living in places like Africa, Texas etc have loads of it. Same goes for smokes. If you guys do some research, smoking originated mostly in colder regions in order to fight harsh cold.
According to wikipedia, it originated with the shamans in 5000 BC. I don’t see how inhaling smoke into the lungs is particularly effective at fighting the cold. I do see that vasodilation may be impaired inlong term smokers, which could help.
Perhaps the cigarette originally functioned as a portable torch?
When it’s cold a cigarette does warm you up. It involves brown fat and Beta waves. HenryLarry is pretty much right in what he says. You’re also right gamerunknown about the origination of tobacco use. It seems the Shaman, medicine man, etc from all over the world knew of this drug along with many more. Nicotinic acid is needed by every cell in the body but cigarette smoking really only benefits a small percentage of people in reality, those who cannot convert niacinamide or take up niacin in the intestines. Actually those rediculous looking smokeless cigarettes would probably work all right for those few. Niacin can also be taken up on the upper back pallet of the mouth in one area. There are many people who eat bacon without any ill effects, the chemicals in the outer cellular structure of fat are necessary also. Eating skin, intestines, or tongue would be better though. It’s the toxins that are stored in the fat that pose the most problems. If an animals liver isn’t functioning right, the blood seems to store toxins in the animals fat. It then can grab it to fight unknown parasites and bacteria when needed. At least that’s the way I interpret what I have read.
Why in the world would I keep track of every article I have read and the authors. If you quote anothers info word for word it is in violation of copyright laws. If you make reference to anothers research without their consent or use it as evidence for you’re hypothesis than you are infringing on intellectual property. If you read many articles and figure out what they all add up to and they are articles that are free to all to view than you are breaking no laws. I don’t need to start breaking laws just to prove my interpretations. Google what I post and you may see as I do with many moons of research. You will need to translate it back into scientific terminology to google it though
You’re apparently talking about niacin. Being called ‘nicotinic acid’ doesn’t make it similar to nicotine. You can’t convert nicotine to niacin by smoking tobacco. They call it niacin because they are afraid that people could make that mistaken association.
Absolute nonsense. It is standard practice in academic, and other, research, to cite sources. Even brief quotations (the usual rule is 10% or less of the whole work) are not usually considered violations of copyright. Citation is no infringement of intellectual property whatsoever: quite the contrary, researchers want their work to be cited as widely as possible. That is how people get to know about it. Research that is never cited is a waste of the researcher’s time, and you are considered to be violating their intellectual property if you use their findings but do not cite them. If your rules were adopted, science and all other forms of serious research would grind to a halt.
Around her, when someone asks for a cite, it generally means that they do not really believe what you are claiming.
What country do you live in? Because the above is not true in the US. Speaking as a paid professional researcher who has published scads of technical papers, several books, and who has taught undergraduate and graduate university courses, and who has served as a committee member on academic misconduct.
Una Persson, would you want you’re research linked to a persons speculative or unproven statements that may have an radical perception to their reasoning? Their ideas may actually be true but not socially acceptable or considered normal for the existing timeframe. This could backlash on you’re reputation but also could possibly promote you’re reputation in the future if it is proven to be true. I am not afraid of cigarette smoke, I am not afraid of bacon. I am not afraid of alcohol but do not desire to drink it unless using it to treat some illness. I am leary of doctors and long term medication because of genetic difference which I refuse to call a disorder. I cannot eat the same foods as some and that does not make a person inferior.
Would I want it? No. Can I prevent it if they obey copyright law? No as well. One can hope that the serious researchers, decision-makers, and others can weigh the evidence and read critically and make the right decision. But ultimately yes sometimes the “bad guys” can get away with playing fast-and-loose with the facts.
