Smoking Is Good For You – part 2

Before my previous post metamorphosed into something else, I was going to write something rather different about the benefits of smoking.

"Smoking is Good for You" is the core message (taken from the 1978 book by William Whitby, the updated version of which is available online as a 7mb pdf file)  of Nightlight, one of the best pro-smoking writers on the Web. He wrote:

My personal motivation is to help other fellow smokers break the spell of antismoking ‘witch doctors’, which is the sole harm to their health related to smoking, and enjoy it the way it was meant to be done. All other good things (such as unraveling of antismoking con and restoring the highly positive view of smoking, e.g. from before 1950s) will come on their own and without any explicit pursuit, once the core concept "smoking is good for you" is replicated enough

So I wanted to help replicate that message of his.

…The more one studies it the more miraculous this ancient medicine looks. I ran recently into few more scientific references on rejuvenating power of tobacco smoke:

a) Osteo-arthritis reduced threefold (the most for knee arthritis in women)
b) Lowered insuline growth factor IGF-1 (in animal experiments this change extends lifespan).
c) Internal antioxidant SOD doubled in smokers (recent article labels the higher SOD "the elixir of ethernal life" based on animal experiments i.e. hard science).
d) Reduced MAO B enzyme (smokers in their 60s have MAO B of nonsmokers in their 20s; also here). Lowering of MAO B is the holy grail (deprenyl does it but not as well as tobacco) of life-extension and smart drug circles.
e) Telomerase ("fountain of youth") much more active in smokers.
f) Glutathione (chief antioxidant in human body) and catalase (another key antioxidant which neutralizes alcohol damage, cyanide,…) doubled in smokers.
g) Nicotine suppresses cell death of neurons (it also promotes vascular growth factor, e.g. growth and branching of capillaries).
h) Low concentration carbon monoxide (as found in tobacco smoke) protects cells in harsh conditions, such as low oxygen and general cell death.
i) Nitric oxide stimulates peripheral circulation (this is the mechanism behind Viagra effect).
j) The miracle supplement (for skin, heart, brain rejuvenation) Coenzyme Q10 is extracted from tobacco leaf.
k) Raises youth hormonoes DHEA, pregnenolone, testosterone,…

… and so on and on, all hard science (not the wishfully interpreted statistical correlations of usual antismoking "science"). It’s just mind boggling how truly good this ancient ‘gift of gods’ is. And this is all from antismoking scientists, doing the hard science, while straining very hard to somehow give their findings negative spin. Smokers ought to know all this and when they do in sufficient numbers, the antismoking racket will be over instantly.

Tobacco smoke also contains cholesterol-reducing Niacin, which name is a shortening of nicotinic acid, also known as vitamin B3, which prevents pellagra. In addition tobacco smoke is an insecticidal and fungicidal and antibacterial agent – which prompts the thought that the banning of smoking in hospitals might have made them less healthy rather than more healthy places. Equally, as many allergies -such as asthma – are triggered by proteins (as may be found in bacteria and fungi), this might explain the increase in allergies in recent decades.

Pharmaceutical companies, who fund a great deal of antismoking research, seem to be trying to make tobacco more or less illegal so that they can sell people pure nicotine-based pharmceutical drugs instead. But if one of the principal benefits of smoking is its antibacterial, fumigant smoke, an orally-administered drug won’t have these environmental benefits. In order to get these full benefits of nicotine, including its rapid delivery by smoke inhalation, pharmaceutical companies may end up having to re-invent smoking.

UPDATE: Wired Researchers Light Up for Nicotine, the Wonder Drug

Nicotine acts on the acetylcholine receptors in the brain, stimulating and regulating the release of a slew of brain chemicals, including seratonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. Not surprisingly, the first scientific work that identified these chemicals and how they affect the body came out of nicotine research — much of it performed by tobacco companies.

Now drugs derived from nicotine and the research on nicotine receptors are in clinical trials for everything from helping to heal wounds, to depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, Tourette Syndrome, ADHD, anger management and anxiety.

More nightlight