100 year old smoked since age 7!

Like I said, go and learn some epidemiology before you embarrass yourself further.

Sure. Next time you want to use untested pharmacueticals, let me know.

 

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I am posting this before reading the rest of the responses, maybe it has been covered.

http://www.journaloftheoretics.com/Editorials/Vol-1/e1-4.htm

It is the way that the data is collected, that gives the impression of smoking CAUSING lung cancer. Nevertheless, if you think by not smoking you wont get lung cancer then you are kidding yourself.

Smoking is the dumbest thing a person can do, it causes many problems the main problem is breathing. A lifelong smoker will most likely get to the point where breathing is very difficult. Incidentally, it is exhaling that is the problem not inhaling.

 

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I don't know why so many people have trouble understanding this. Whenever there's a discussion of how smoking increases the likelihood of developing cancer, there is always a legion of people ready to chime in with their story about how they know somebody who smoked for decades without any health problems. So what? I know a guy who survived being struck be lightening. Seriously - I did my undergrad with him. He was playing soccer as a teenager when a bolt came down and struck him. It blew his shirt off. And he didn't die! He didn't even have any long-term effects! So now the logical thing for me to conclude is that all this stuff I've been hearing about being struck by lightening being dangerous must be wrong?

Why does it ever even occur to people that this sort of reasoning is valid?

 

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Some people can eat a lot and never ever put on weight. So should we all believe that overeating cannot cause overweight/obesity?

An exception to the rule is just that.

 

And some people have a genetic predisposition for good health regardless of what they do. Wouldn't it be great if there were a genetic test for that!

 

There is, it's called the longevity gene. It's is further accentuated by eating frugally(some smokers also do this), could be what happened with your 100 year old case study.

 

So ....does smoking cause cancer or not? Ain't got nothin' to do with embarrassing anyone, it's a simple question that ain't never been answered by anyone ....and yet you seem to know that answer. So please ...tell us.

Baron Max

 

Sometimes.

 

In a large percentage of smokers.


Key Points


Cigarette smoking causes 87 percent of lung cancer deaths and is responsible for most cancers of the larynx, oral cavity and pharynx, esophagus, and bladder .

Secondhand smoke is responsible for an estimated 3,000 lung cancer deaths among U.S. nonsmokers each year .

Tobacco smoke contains thousands of chemical agents, including over 60 substances that are known to cause cancer .

The risk of developing smoking-related cancers, as well as noncancerous diseases, increases with total lifetime exposure to cigarette smoke .

Smoking cessation has major and immediate health benefits, including decreasing the risk of lung and other cancers, heart attack, stroke, and chronic lung disease .

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/cancer

 

But not all the time. So there must be other factors, right? So ....smoking doesn't cause lung cancer. Thank you.

Baron Max

 

How do you know those "other factors" don't mitigate the effects of the carcinogens in tobacco?

 

If you're not gonna get lung cancer from smoking, or not smoking, cigarettes, you're bound to get it some other numerous way elsewhere in your body, heh. Or hey, how about diabetes? Mmm..

- N

 

Hell, everyone knows you get diabetes from eating too much sugar!! Hell, when I was growing up, that's why we called it "sugar diabetes".

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Baron Max

 

madan:

Which is why the rates of lung cancer peaked here in Aussie about 5 years ago.

It's the height of ignorance to try and deny that cigarettes place you at a high risk of lung cancer, respiratory disease, and cardiovascular disease. Merely pointing to one anecdotal case doesn't somehow debunk the mounds of epidemiological data which says otherwise.

Note: I checked. The woman didn't inhale.

 

Baron:

Ya know, you're absolutely right, Baron.

Because one erroneous association was once made due to confounders, we can no longer place any stock in epidemiological associations, no matter how convincing they may be.

The next time you have a bacterial infection, don't bother taking antibiotics, because the effectiveness of such drugs are determined by randomized clinical trials and statistical analysis.

When you bones start to ache, and your joints inflame due to some form of arthritis, don't bother with corticosteroids, because their effectiveness is touted via epidemiological data. And shit, we all know how unreliable that is, huh?

The next time you accuse fat ass Americans of burdening the health system, take a pause. After all, all this shit about obesity being linked to numerous detrimental diseases has only been established via epidemiological studies.

 

I was responding to nietzchefan's post about how he has all these problems from being around his parents who smoked. My point was that everyone was around people who smoked all the time back then, so his exposure was not unusual. Therefore, while smoke may have exacerbated his condition, it was not responsible for it.

 

It's not just Cancer.

A good proportion of older people have circulation problems.
If you've smoked its going to be worse.
"Circulation"- sounds like its not too bad.
But the pain for some is so bad they ask for their legs to be amputated.

Health of Teeth, Skin, Heart. You name it. More problems if you smoke.

This 100 year old is a hundred years old, and should know better!

 

I am sure that some people who hit themselves on the head with a hammer or dove into an empty swimming pool also lived to be old. I still think it would be a bad idea to pay money to do these things. I feel that way about smoking.

 

Smoking sometimes causes lung cancer. Sometimes it doesn't. But it increases the probability that you will develop cancer, in the same way that getting stuck by lightening increases the probability that you will die from electrocution. Why is that so hard for you to understand? Do you have some sort of brain disorder that causes you to group everything into perfectly binary categories?

I’ll demonstrate the exact same sort of reasoning that you’re using with something else – let’s say, gunshots – and hopefully it will help you to realize how retarded you sound here.

Person: “Getting shot by a gun is dangerous. If you get shot, there is a good chance that you will die. It is wise to avoid getting shot.”

You: “Oh, so every single person who gets shot is guaranteed to die? I don’t think that’s true. You hear about people surviving gunshots all the time.”

Person: “No, not everyone dies. But many people who are shot will end up dying because of it.”

You: “So do gunshots kill people, or not?”

Person: “They kill some people.”

You: “Oh, so since some people survive gunshots wounds, gunshots wounds must not kill people!”

 

No, it doesn't! The only way one can be sure is if that same person would NOT have gotten cancer if he had NOT smoked cigarettes. And one can't possibly test that in any scientific way. The person might well have been prone to or have the genetical make-up for contract lung cancer ....whether they ever smoked or not. In the same way many people who have never smoked end up with lung cancer. Smoking didn't cause that person's cancer, did it?

So see, you can't even say honestly that smoking "increases the probability" of cancer. You can't know that.

Your little commentary about the gunshot wounds is not what I'm saying at all, not even close. I'm not saying that smoke does not cause lung cancer, nor am I saying that it does. I'm only questioning the scientific evidence, and as I see it, no one knows ....it could be that people have a gene that causes it, whether they smoke or not.

And, no, you don't know either! Your statistics and probability studies don't prove anything. In fact, stats and probs only suggest a connection ...don't prove jack-shit.

Baron Max