H/T Audrey Silk for two news reports. First Healthcanal, 5 Dec 2014:
Study: Benefits for ex-smokers outweigh weight gain
A study conducted at UNMC found it’s better to be an overweight ex-smoker than a normal-weight smoker when it comes to the risk of dying.
The study, published in Tobacco Control, a British Medical Journal publication, recently was featured in a podcast. The journal is an international peer review journal covering the nature and consequences of tobacco use worldwide.
“The main message to be given to smokers is that even if they gain weight because of quitting smoking, it is still a healthier option than continuing to smoke,” said Mohammad Siahpush, Ph.D., professor in the UNMC College of Public Health and principal investigator of the study.
Weight gain is one reason some smokers continue smoking or relapse after quitting.
The objective of the study was to determine which is more detrimental — being a normal weight smoker or quitting smoking and becoming overweight or obese.
And then, just when you’ve read and digested that from the pile of dog-eared magazines in the doctor’s waiting room, you pull out another with the same date, and read therein:
Obesity ‘as bad as cigarette smoking’ for life expectancy, study says
If you haven’t yet grasped the danger of obesity, Canadian researchers have attempted to quantify it: Being obese can slash as many as eight years off your life—and leave you in ill health for up to 19 years before that death.
Researchers compiled data from roughly 4,000 people of varying body weights, then created a computer model that estimates the risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease and assesses how weight affects life expectancy.
They found that severely obese men between 20 and 39 years of age lost 8.4 years of life compared to their healthy-weight counterparts. Women lost 6.1 years, the BBC reports.
Further, those men experienced 18.8 more years of ill heath; the figure for women was 19.1. Obese people could lose up to six years and people who are overweight could lose up to three years, per findings published in the Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology.
The younger the individual the worse the potential impact: Those in their 60s and 70s who are severely obese were found to have lost one year, but dealt with 7 more years of ill health.
“In terms of life-expectancy, we feel being overweight is as bad as cigarette smoking,” says lead author Dr. Steven Grover in a press release.
It’s a wonderful example of “experts” flatly contradicting each other in print, and on the very same day.
Perhaps Mohammad Siahpush and Steven Grover should just slug it out in a boxing ring over 15 rounds. It would at least be a form of entertainment. And you could place bets on it. And of course someone would end up the clear winner.
Meanwhile, is it any wonder if people pay less and less attention to these jokers.
Frank Davis 
The competing lifestyle studies are infuriating. They pass preliminary research off as final doctrine and make generalized pronouncements without substantiation. Every day another propaganda piece calls for a new smoking ban (both indoors and out).
Today’s new prospective ban is Montgomery, Alabama. They want to expand an existing ban to eliminate separate smoking rooms in bars. Check out the story at “Should the city of Montgomery ban smoking in all public places?” http://www.al.com/news/montgomery/index.ssf/2014/12/should_the_city_of_montgomery.html It has an on line poll. Currently the Yes, ban smoking everywhere crew is winning. So e counter votes would be nice.
Meanwhile in Aukland (New Zealand) a proposed comprehensive out door ban is taking flack. According to a news report. “Banning smoking in public places ‘over the top’:”
“A push to see smoking banned in public places has drawn fierce criticism from ONE News readers. The majority of ONE News Facebook commenters say they are against the Cancer Society’s push to have smoking banned in public places in Auckland.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/banning-smoking-in-public-places-over-top-6199646
I have to wonder why the all out push for total indoor/outdoor bans now? Just a little over 10 years ago you could smoke inside at bars pretty much everywhere in Europe, UK, Asia, North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, etc. Even in California outdoor smoking patios were always busy. Then one by one come the bans. And now that the indoor bans are in place they are extending to outside. This is clearly orchestrated globally. (To the point that many media sites–as mentioned in previous threads–have stopped taking comments critical to the anti-smoking party line.)
But again, why now? What is the hidden timeline?
That’s been my same thought for the last 18 months or so but especially since nov 4th 2014 the day the GOP swept the elections………Even the democrat in Louissiana lost to republican in a runoff this past weekend. I know this Rand Paul is lighting up the nite with te taxation issue and garners death then todays break about Gruber doing a tobacco taxation study for his group and CDC director Friedeman backing all the claims in it……
Obviously the senate comittees will redirect or defund much of the anti-tobacco federal funding that’s been going on…………
That’s my suspicion and likely its felt all the way to the UN and the WHO.
Bloomberg paid for Gruber to do the study……but its all the same Cabal……..
Michael Bloomberg Funded Pro-Tobacco Tax Study by Obamacare Architect Jonathan Gruber – Breaking…
With just days until Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber testifies before Congress, a 2008 study has resurfaced which reveals that former New York City…
http://cnmnewz.com/michael-bloomberg-funded-pro-tobacco-tax-study-by-obamacare-architect-jonathan-gruber/
Id say the politicians might finally be going to stop the witch hunt. But only time will tell!
Gov Cuomo is setting up a statewide so called Elliot Ness styled UNTOUCHABLES Squad of G-MEN…………
ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo is out to kick cigarette smugglers in the butt.
In an effort to crack down on the sale of illegal smokes in New York, Cuomo is set to announce Monday a 13-agency task force dedicated to keeping illegal cigarettes out of the state.
“This new law-enforcement strategy will help to crack down on these illegal cigarette sales and capture those smugglers who seek to evade the law and rob the state of the revenue it is rightly owed,” Cuomo said.
Read more at http://libertycrier.com/ny-profit-margin-smuggled-cigarette-cartons-higher-cocaine-heroin-marijuana/#5LLsw6QOybDOtDkR.99
You must have seen this Harley…
http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/grubers-downfall.html
Classic
Yep sure did…………He will be back before senate hearings again,guaranteed.
All the 1920s styled repercussions are here from good old Prohibition again! Get the popcorn they was warned…………
Hearing on Tobacco: Taxes Owed, Avoided, and Evaded
Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance
Chairman Wyden, Ranking Member Hatch, and members of the Committee:
The high tax burden on tobacco results in de facto prohibition of the products, bringing all the undesirable outcomes associated with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s. In our research we have found evidence of substantial tobacco smuggling from low to high tax jurisdictions, violent crime, theft of tobacco and tobacco tax stamps, corruption of law-enforcement officers, and even funding of terrorist organizations through crime rings.
http://taxfoundation.org/article/tobacco-taxation-and-unintended-consequences-us-senate-hearing-tobacco-taxes-owed-avoided-and-evaded
In the case of NZ it’s partly down to the fact they’ve apparently committed to a smoke-free deadline of 2025.
http://smokefree.org.nz/smokefree-2025
And their thinking (I believe) essentially goes along the lines of “if you don’t see it, then it doesn’t exist”.
As we’re told by ASH (Scotland) that Scotland’s supposed to become smoke-free in 2034, I expect we’ll be subjected to pretty much the same thinking, possibly after the next Assembly elections in 2016.
Well it’s even now as of 1:25 am, NY time.
Ugh. Posted this in the wrong place ( or it showed up in the wrong place). Point: that poll is now dead even as of past 1AM NY time. Keep voting if only for the hell of it.
It’s now at:
No – 52.83%
Yes – 45.28%
Now:
No – 55.91%
Yes – 39.78%
The final result of the Montgomery Poll:
Should the city of Montgomery ban smoking in public places? (Poll Closed)
No 56.25% (54 votes)
Yes 39.58% (38 votes)
I don’t care. 4.17% (4 votes)
Total Votes: 96
It will be interesting to see what the city council does…
Buried in a report on the decline of pubs:
“Yet the one factor that correlates most closely with the accelerating decline in the pub industry is the smoking ban.”
At “The real reasons for the tragic demise of the British pub industry,” The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/11283995/The-real-reasons-for-the-tragic-demise-of-the-British-pub-industry.html
Yep it looks like things are finally coming to a head!
More than 6000 pubs closures due to taxation and regulation
The new paper, which looks at the causes behind the decline of the pub industry in recent years, highlights the role taxation and regulation has played in the closure of thousands of pubs. Measures such as…
iea.org.uk
http://www.iea.org.uk/in-the-media/media-coverage/more-6000-pubs-closures-due-to-taxation-and-regulation
Was surprised by that one. It’s penned by Chris Snowden and his stuff doesn’t generally get picked up by the mass media.
It has this time and I have to say the article’s interesting, however the comments even more! Imagine that, The Daily Mail, and they do so love the Tories, so maybe a feather light touch in their direction, perhaps to get more “populist”!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2867715/Drinks-taxes-UK-high-responsible-40-EU-alcohol-duty.html
Op-Ed: Obamacare can be repealed
Randy E. Barnett 6:30 p.m. CST December 7, 2014
Thanks to four justices of the Supreme Court, there is now a clear path to repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act next year, finally bringing Obamacare to an end.
But Republicans won’t accomplish this by waiting for the court or just voting to repeal the law one more time. The only way they can succeed is by crafting their own replacement – and they need to start right away.
Until the Supreme Court agreed to hear King v. Burwell, which challenges the legality of the IRS rule allowing Obamacare subsidies in states that have not built their own insurance exchanges, the conventional wisdom was that Congress would pass a symbolic bill to repeal Obamacare that everyone knows would be vetoed by the president. Then they’d move on. Obamacare would survive at least until 2017.
But the decision to hear King changes everything. Insiders know that this challenge has a decent chance of success. Rather than asking the court to establish some grand constitutional principle, the justices are merely being asked to hold the IRS to the actual wording of the law, which is not nearly so heavy a lift.
The eventual outcome of the case doesn’t matter as much as the decision to hear it. With the lawsuit now looming over them, all the “stakeholders” – such as insurance companies and health care providers – know that the subsidies for health insurance in 27 states representing 60 percent of the population are in serious jeopardy. And the end of these subsidies means the end of the insurance mandate for businesses in those states, which kicks in only if employees are eligible for subsidies on an exchange.
There is now a serious financial risk that did not exist before the Supreme Court agreed to hear this case.
Insurance and health care companies need an insurance policy against the collapse of the insurance market. Republicans in Congress need a way to resist the enormous political pressure that will be applied to simply “fix” the health care law by allowing subsidies to flow through the federal exchange. And Democrats need to salvage something from all their efforts to pass the law.
In short, now everyone needs to invest in devising a replacement for Obamacare. Even better, by developing such an alternative, Republicans can make a favorable ruling more likely.
As a rule, Supreme Court justices are reluctant to invalidate a law on which many relied. It will be far easier for the justices to enforce the law’s existing language if they know there is a viable alternative that can be enacted by both houses of Congress and signed by the president within a week of their ruling.
To devise such a replacement, the Senate and the House must use “regular order” and their committees to do actual legislating with input from the Democratic minority.
Because everyone will now know that their handiwork may very well become law, everyone has an incentive to take this project seriously.
The first line of any such bill should be the complete repeal of each and every word of the Affordable Care Act. This monstrosity must not be allowed to survive in any form. In its place, the new Congress should write a replacement bill that would:
•Restore the private insurance market using actuarially based insurance priced according to risk. For example, young people would pay much less than older people.
•Restore consumer choice to buy true private insurance limited to the terms they want to pay for, including policies insuring only against the catastrophic health care costs, and medical savings accounts.
•Increase competition by allowing state-regulated insurance to be sold across state lines so consumers can keep their policies when moving from one state to another.
•Increase equity by extending the tax benefits now available only to employer-based insurance to all health insurance. Like car insurance, you shouldn’t have to change health insurance policies when changing jobs.
With the Democrats now in the minority, such a bill is very likely to be bipartisan if it contains a “refundable” tax credit for health insurance for all Americans, regardless of income — essentially extending to everyone the very subsidies that the court will strike down.
By participating in the process, not only can they ensure that subsidies are included, they also can claim victory. Rightly or wrongly, Democrats can say that, without it, Republicans would never have supported reforming the previously dysfunctional health insurance system.
With or without bipartisanship, however, Republicans need to have a well-vetted replacement in the pipeline. To make a favorable ruling in King more likely, the legislative wheels must be visibly in motion by the time of oral arguments in March.
Before the Supreme Court took this case, Republicans in Congress were limited to symbolic action against Obamacare. Now, thanks to voters in November and the justices who voted to hear the case, beginning in January, Republicans in Congress can craft a bipartisan market-based replacement that the president will be compelled to sign in June when the court announces its decision. Simply by acting as legislators, Republicans in the next Congress can actually repeal and replace Obamacare.
Randy Barnett, a Georgetown University law professor, directs the Georgetown Center for the Constitution.
http://tinyurl.com/l8l28vb
Stephen L. Carter, Bloomberg View: Too many silly laws make it more difficult for enforcement
STEPHEN L. CARTER Bloomberg View
On the opening day of law school, I always counsel my first-year students never to support a law they are not willing to kill to enforce. Usually they greet this advice with something between skepticism and puzzlement, until I remind them that the police go armed to enforce the will of the state, and if you resist, they might kill you.
I wish this caution were only theoretical. It isn’t. Whatever your view on the refusal of a New York City grand jury to indict the police officer whose chokehold apparently led to the death of Eric Garner, it’s useful to remember the crime that Garner is alleged to have committed: He was selling individual cigarettes, or loosies, in violation of New York law.
The obvious racial dynamics of the case — the police officer, Daniel Pantaleo, is white; Garner was black — have sparked understandable outrage. But, at least among libertarians, so has the law that was being enforced. Wrote Nick Gillespie in the Daily Beast, “Clearly something has gone horribly wrong when a man lies dead after being confronted for selling cigarettes to willing buyers.” Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, appearing on MSNBC, also blamed the statute: “Some politician put a tax of $5.85 on a pack of cigarettes, so they’ve driven cigarettes underground by making them so expensive.”
The problem is actually broader. It’s not just cigarette tax laws that can lead to the death of those the police seek to arrest. It’s every law. Libertarians argue that we have far too many laws, and the Garner case offers evidence that they’re right. I often tell my students that there will never be a perfect technology of law enforcement, and therefore it is unavoidable that there will be situations where police err on the side of too much violence rather than too little. Better training won’t lead to perfection. But fewer laws would mean fewer opportunities for official violence to get out of hand.
The legal scholar Douglas Husak, in his excellent 2009 book “Overcriminalization: The Limits of the Criminal Law,” points out that federal law alone includes more than 3,000 crimes, fewer than half of which found in the Federal Criminal Code. The rest are scattered through other statutes. A citizen who wants to abide by the law has no quick and easy way to find out what the law actually is — a violation of the traditional principle that the state cannot punish without fair notice.
In addition to these statutes, he writes, an astonishing 300,000 or more federal regulations may be enforceable through criminal punishment in the discretion of an administrative agency. Nobody knows the number for sure.
Husak cites estimates that more than 70 percent of American adults have committed a crime that could lead to imprisonment. He quotes the legal scholar William Stuntz to the effect that we are moving toward “a world in which the law on the books makes everyone a felon.” Does this seem too dramatic? Husak points to studies suggesting that more than half of young people download music illegally from the Internet. That’s been a federal crime for almost 20 years. These kids, in theory, could all go to prison.
Many criminal laws hardly pass the giggle test. Husak takes us on a tour through bizarre statutes, including the Alabama law making it a crime to maim oneself for the purpose of gaining sympathy, the Florida law prohibiting displays of deformed animals, the Illinois law against “damaging anhydrous ammonia equipment.” And then there’s the wondrous federal crime of disturbing mud in a cave on federal land. (Be careful where you run to get out of the rain.) Whether or not these laws are frequently enforced, Husak’s concern is that they exist — and potentially make felons of us all.
Part of the problem, Husak suggests, is the growing tendency of legislatures — including Congress — to toss in a criminal sanction at the end of countless bills on countless subjects. It’s as though making an offense criminal shows how much we care about it.
Well, maybe so. But making an offense criminal also means that the police will go armed to enforce it. Overcriminalization matters, Husak says, because the costs of facing criminal sanction are so high and because the criminal law can no longer sort out the law-abiding from the non-law-abiding. True enough. But it also matters because — as the Garner case reminds us — the police might kill you.
I don’t mean this as a criticism of cops, whose job after all is to carry out the legislative will. The criticism is of a political system that takes such bizarre delight in creating new crimes for the cops to enforce. It’s unlikely that the New York legislature, in creating the crime of selling untaxed cigarettes, imagined that anyone would die for violating it. But a wise legislator would give the matter some thought before creating a crime. Officials who fail to take into account the obvious fact that the laws they’re so eager to pass will be enforced at the point of a gun cannot fairly be described as public servants.
Husak suggests as one solution interpreting the Constitution to include a right not to be punished. This in turn would mean that before a legislature could criminalize a particular behavior, it would have to show a public interest significantly higher than for most forms of legislation.
He offers the example of a legislature that decides “to prohibit — on pain of criminal liability — the consumption of designated unhealthy foods such as doughnuts.”
Of course, activists on the right and the left tend to believe that all of their causes are of great importance. Whatever they want to ban or require, they seem unalterably persuaded that the use of state power is appropriate.
That’s too bad. Every new law requires enforcement; every act of enforcement includes the possibility of violence. There are many painful lessons to be drawn from the Garner tragedy, but one of them, sadly, is the same as the advice I give my students on the first day of classes: Don’t ever fight to make something illegal unless you’re willing to risk the lives of your fellow citizens to get your way.
Stephen L. Carter, a Bloomberg View columnist, is a professor of law at Yale University.
http://www.wacotrib.com/opinion/columns/guest_columns/stephen-l-carter-bloomberg-view-too-many-silly-laws-make/article_f560c799-5e60-56b7-9ecf-
Heres another fast forward ban with no reasoning at all
Duncan council gives preliminary approval to smoking ban
Resident Calvin Cowen argued the ordinance equated to unnecessary government interference because most businesses already have policies against smoking, and those that do not have chosen not to for financial reasons
There’s no harm to citizens of Duncan from second-hand smoke, but there is an economic harm,” Cowen said. “I’m confused why we’re even doing this.”
http://www.goupstate.com/article/20141209/ARTICLES/141209645/1083/ARTICLES?Title=-Duncan-council-gives-preliminary-approval-to-smoking-ban
Now about conflicting results? The American Cancer Society is now reporting that cancer still accounts for about 1 in 3 cancer deaths in the US despite a decrease in the number of smokers.
The article “Smoking still causes large proportion of cancer deaths in the United States” appears at Science Codex, 9 Dec 2014
http://www.sciencecodex.com/smoking_still_causes_large_proportion_of_cancer_deaths_in_the_united_states-147096
Text follows:
ATLANTA – December 9, 2014- A new American Cancer Society study finds that despite significant drops in smoking rates, cigarettes continue to cause about three in ten cancer deaths in the United States. The study, appearing in the Annals of Epidemiology, concludes that efforts to reduce smoking prevalence as rapidly as possible should be a top priority for the U.S. public health efforts to prevent cancer deaths.
More than 30 years ago, a groundbreaking analysis by famed British researchers, Richard Doll and Richard Peto, calculated that 30 percent of all cancer deaths in the United States were caused by smoking. Since that time, no new estimate of this percentage has been published in the scientific literature. During that same time, smoking rates have dropped, but new cancers have been added to the list of those established as caused by smoking and lung cancer death rates among female smokers have increased.
To provide a well-documented estimate for cigarette smoking and cancer mortality in the contemporary United States, researchers led by Eric J. Jacobs, PhD, looked at the most recent data on smoking rates from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) as well as data on the risks of smoking derived from epidemiologic studies, to estimate what is called the population attributable fraction (PAF), described as the proportion of cancer deaths in the population caused by smoking.
The authors found that the PAF for active cigarette smoking was 28.7% when estimated conservatively, including only deaths from the 12 cancers currently formally established as caused by smoking by the US Surgeon General. When estimated more comprehensively, including excess deaths from all cancers, the PAF was 31.7% percent. These estimates do not include additional potential cancer deaths from environmental tobacco smoke or other type of tobacco use such as cigars, pipes, or smokeless tobacco.
The authors say despite important declines in smoking prevalence, the PAF for smoking and cancer mortality estimated for 2010 is similar to the 30% estimated by Doll and Peto more than 30 years ago. But that does not indicate that declines in smoking rates have not made important contributions to reducing cancer mortality. Rather, other factors have contributed to increasing the PAF, including the addition of new cancers to the list of those counted as caused by smoking, increases over time in death rates from lung cancer among female smokers, and progress in reducing deaths from cancer caused by factors other than smoking.
They conclude: “Our results indicate that cigarette smoking causes about three in 10 cancer deaths in the contemporary United States. Reducing smoking prevalence as rapidly as possible should be a top priority for US public health efforts to prevent future cancer deaths.”
Source: American Cancer Society
Now I really feel like I have dropped down a rabbit hole. The cancer deaths in the population attributed to smoking stayed roughly the same (30%} despite the decrease in prevalence. To make this seem viable they then add qualifying language that says the didn’t count everything (but then neither did Doll and Peto in the initial study). No wonder the masses are full steam ahead for smoking bans. It seems smoking kills you even when you don’t smoke… Somehow this has to get covered by a media outlet that can actually read and understand quantitative methods!
The Red Herring
These estimates do not include additional potential cancer deaths from environmental tobacco smoke or other type of tobacco use such as cigars, pipes, or smokeless tobacco
Heres some real life numbers
The ranking goes for all cancer deaths/mortality:
Per 100,000 population CDC NUMBERS/ smoking rates from tobacco free kids
Kentucky at 207 Adults in Kentucky who smoke* 29.0% (971,000)
Miss. 200 Adults in Mississippi who smoke* 26.0% (579,300)
West Virginia 196 Adults in West Virginia who smoke* 28.6% (420,500)
Louisianna 196 Adults in Louisiana who smoke* 25.7% (888,300)
Arkansas 193 Adults in Arkansas who smoke* 27.0% (601,400)
Alabama 190 Adults in Alabama who smoke* 24.3% (893,100)
Indiana 187 Adults in Indiana who smoke* 25.6% (1,259,300)
Maine 186 Adults in Maine who smoke* 22.8% (241,400)
Missouri 184 Adults in Missouri who smoke* 25.0% (1,149,600)
Delaware 184 Adults in Delaware who smoke* 21.8% (153,100)
South Carolina 182 Adults in South Carolina who smoke* 23.1% (831,200)
Lung and Bronchus. Invasive Cancer Incidence Rates and 95% Confidence Intervals by Age and Race and Ethnicity, United States (Table 3.15.1.1M) *†‡
Rates are per 100,000 persons. Rates are per 100,000 persons.
Note the age where LC is found…………..OLD AGE group incidence hits the 500/100,000 at age 75-85
AGE it seems is the deciding factor……….
http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/uscs/… Cancer Sites Combined&Year=2010&Site=Lung and Bronchus&SurveyInstanceID=1
Ky CDC rate is now 31.2% it went up instead of 29. But all the states listed are trending precisely in deaths save one thing……………smoking rates whether higher or lower they still had basically the same number of cancer deaths……..
Don’t forget they added in another 50,000 a year deaths to their original 400,000 last year or so…………So according to them fewer smokers equals more death………..How do you get away with that shit!
Obviously it wont be long before we have miraculous genetical transitory deaths from smoking great grand mothers coming up on the list next…………Your disease was caused by your great great grans smoking habit………….put her on the list of SMOKING ATTRIBUTABLE DEATHS!
Well, they’re already claiming as much if the father smoked. Apparently, smoking damages sperm.
Heavy Drinking, Smoking Won’t Harm Men’s Sperm: Study
But the data should not give would-be dads the green light to pursue unhealthy lifestyles, experts say
http://consumer.healthday.com/general-health-information-16/alcohol-abuse-news-12/heavy-drinking-smoking-won-t-harm-men-s-sperm-study-665690.html
Rather, other factors have contributed to increasing the PAF, including the addition of new cancers to the list of those counted as caused by smoking, increases over time in death rates from lung cancer among female smokers, and progress in reducing deaths from cancer caused by factors other than smoking.
See. That’s how it’s done. When the theory starts to unravel (as in cancers still increasing despite falls in smoking rates), you just move the goalposts. Easy, innit?
Defeat Is Victory
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/09/2014 – 22:30
On the wall of George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth from his novel 1984 there were three slogans: “WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” It occurred to us that these apply just a little bit too well to the way the Washington, DC establishment operates. But there is a fourth slogan they need to add to the wall of Washington’s Ministry of Truth. It is this: DEFEAT IS VICTORY!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-09/defeat-victory
“The main message to be given to smokers is that even if they gain weight because of quitting smoking, it is still a healthier option than continuing to smoke,”
Mohammad Siahpush, Ph.D.can say what he likes but he doesn’t have to bear the consequences.
I don’t think anyone should recommend any course of action to anyone until the results on the consequences to long-term smokers quitting are in.
It seems that there are a lot of old wives tales that anti-smoking organisations console themselves with, are slowly being debunked.
For example –
Weight gain after quitting smoking not caused by overeating: study
“The average smoker gains up to 5kg in the year after smoking and until now, experts have put the weight gain down to nervous nibbles or comfort eating to deal with stress.
But researchers at Zurich University Hospital believe that when we quit smoking the real cause of weight gain could be the bacteria in our intestines.
After quitting, researchers found gut flora in smokers became much more like an obese person’s.
Over nine weeks, the researchers studied faecal samples from 20 volunteers –– five non-smokers, five smokers and 10 people who quit one week into the study.
They found people who had recently quit have more Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes bacteria, which helps the body store fat instead of excreting it.
Over the nine-week study, the quitters gained an average of 2.2kg, but said they had not changed their food and drink consumption.
“Under the same living conditions, they gained weight after the cessation of smoking, and they showed a change in the microbiota,” said study leader Professor Gerhard Rogler said.
But Professor Rogler said more research needs to be done to verify his findings.
“Nobody believed the people who stopped smoking and said they weren’t eating more but still gained weight,” he said.
“Perhaps we simply should be more willing to believe what people tell us.”
http://health.ninemsn.com.au/healthnews/8715104/weight-gain-after-quitting-smoking-not-caused-by-overeating-study
Smoking Cessation Induces Profound Changes in the Composition of the Intestinal Microbiota in Humans
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0059260
The question is why?
What should be given to quitting smokers to stop this happening?
I have my own thoughts on the missing ingredient and every intention of missing out on these “unintended consequences” and the unfortunate “collateral damage” if tobacco is ever made illegal.
Unlike all the newly created diabetic, obese or ulcerative colitis sufferers, I don’t intend to be a medicated drain on the NHS.
As the root cause so far seems to be a systematic inflammation that sets in after quitting, it may be that there is something in the smoke that the body starts to rely on to regulate the immune system rather than continuing to make enough by itself.
Who knows, out of sheer self preservation we may yet discover the essential ingredients in tobacco smoking.
But with so much disinformation being pumped out on a weekly basis, trying to find them is like wading through treacle.
…it may be that there is something in the smoke that the body starts to rely on to regulate the immune system rather than continuing to make enough by itself.
That’s a very interesting possibility, Rose, and could well explain the reason that smoking becomes habitual. They’ve spent years yammering on about nicotine addiction without having a shred of evidence, because they need something to explain why smokers smoke. Of course the main reason smokers smoke is because they enjoy it, but mere enjoyment doesn’t explain why smoking becomes a quite compelling habit. Changes to the immune system would very eloquently provide an explanation to many aspects of smoking.
It’s a pity that all the money they waste on junk smoking science and the subsequent propaganda isn’t spent investigating theories like that.
What set me thinking was watching this mornings news.
Nearly 50% take prescription drugs
http: //www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30411246
I don’t take any, mind you, habitually avoiding doctors might be the reason for that.
As you know, after seeing too much anti-tobacco propaganda, I finally took up smoking to find out what it really did and why so many people enjoyed it, so I was watching for changes.
The first thing I noticed was that I lost my shyness, my filthy temper and became far more confident in general.
Now I discover that unlike one in 9 women according to the study I’m not on prescribed antidepressants – because I appear to have been on a natural one for 40 years.
Smoking May Act as an Antidepressant Drug
“This suggests that naphthoquinone “is a good [MAO] inhibitor–not gangbusters, but a good inhibitor,” Castagnoli says.”
“Monoamine-oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) antidepressants are a group of medicines that are used to treat depression.”
http: //www.patient.co.uk/health/maoi-antidepressants
That also helps to explain why they used to give cigarette to wounded soldiers or people reach for a cigarette after a shock.
The other thing I noticed fairly quickly that the Raynaud’s Phenomenon that I’d suffered since I was a child, seemed to have mostly gone.
If my fingers and toes get too cold they go white and then blue until the circulation comes back.
I hadn’t grown out of it, you never do, what I had done was taken up smoking, unknowingly inhaling nitric oxide.
Gel improves circulation disorder
“People who suffer from the circulatory disorder Raynaud’s syndrome may benefit from a gel that helps to increase blood flow.
The gel is applied to the skin and acts by widening blood vessels, alleviating the extreme cold which some sufferers experience.”
“The key to the treatment is nitric oxide, which is known as a very effective vasodilator (an agent which widens blood vessels).
Although the cause of Raynaud’s syndrome is not entirely clear, one possible explanation is a defect in the body’s ability to produce nitric oxide.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/516365.stm
And when you read the properties and medical uses of nitric oxide, it may have saved me from a lot worse things than just white fingers.
A lot of ex -smokers seem to start falling apart after they stop smoking, I want to know why.
Nicotine doesn’t seem to stop vapers developing ulcerative colitis whereas carbon monoxide apparently does.
For all anti-tobacco’s trumpeting of the virtues of quitting, this is a very neglected area of science.
Paradoxically, I, who as a young man consumed illegal drugs of every hue with abandoned enthusiasm in industrial quantities now find myself eschewing prescription (and indeed nearly all) drugs unless I feel they are absolutely necessary. Even paracetamol and the like. I make an exception for alcohol and the occasional spliff (and of course tobacco, if you classify that as a drug), but that’s about it. I’m not in the least evangelical about it, however. I think ALL drugs should be legalised and available and a matter of personal choice.
“People who suffer from the circulatory disorder Raynaud’s syndrome may benefit from a gel that helps to increase blood flow.
The gel is applied to the skin and acts by widening blood vessels, alleviating the extreme cold which some sufferers experience.”
I suffer from Reynaud’s – it’s one of the reasons I try to live in warmer climes. However, I have a very simple remedy for when my fingers go white and lose sensation (although I try to avoid doing it in public as it makes me look like a bit of a loony). I simply windmill my arms, and the centrifugal force considerably increases the blood pressure in my extremities. A minute or so of looking like a complete prat, and feeling (and colour) is fully restored to my fingers. Works every time. But whatever you do, don’t tell anybody that that’s what I do, Rose. My gravitas factor score would fall to zero. ;)
I keep my hands in my pockets when out and about but I also find hot blooded people make excellent radiators as my husband knows to his cost.
My neighbour is one too, I made her scream when I flicked a midge off her neck on a hot day this summer, my hands were so icy cold. : )
Good for making pastry though.
Nisakiman, I too used to get numbness/whiteness in my right hand at times. I attributed it to swinging my heavy 25 oz framing hammer for eight hours a day. It stills plagues me every once and a while and my remedy is the same as the one you described, works a treat. These days I draw structures more than erect them.
The hammer is definitely mightier than the computer mouse.
I found this on the net for what it’s worth:
“Finally, injuries due to mechanical trauma caused by vibration (such as that associated with chain saws and jackhammers), repetitive motion (carpal tunnel syndrome), electrical shock, and exposure to extreme cold can led to the development of Reynaud’s disease.”
Smokervoter
That would be Vibration White Finger.
I knew someone who got that but until now I had no idea that it was related to Raynaud’s in any way.
http://www.raynauds.org.uk/associated-conditions/vibration-white-finger
I’ve just always had it , I merely thought that my internal thermostat was set incorrectly and I was going into the first stages of frostbite.
“As a protective response, when your body is exposed to extreme cold, blood vessels narrow (constrict) so that blood (and oxygen) are diverted away from your extremities to your vital organs to keep your body alive.”
http://www.patient.co.uk/health/frostbite-leaflet
I’m still not convinced that I was wrong.
I stopped smoking for three months and put on 14lbs. I had never been overweight in my life. For the first couple of weeks I did eat more sweet things but that wore off quickly and still the weight piled on. I decided if that was my choice I was going back to smoking! It took me another three months to take it off, never again.
Another poll you can vote on:
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/poll_impact_of_smoking_ban_on_pubs_less_than_claimed_say_norwich_publicans_1_3880187
Just did, It was 63% Agree with ban and 37% Disagree (No) just now.
Government anti-smoking campaign cost just $480 per quitter, study finds
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/12/10/government-anti-smoking-campaign-cost-just-480-per-quitter-study-finds/
johnlistern
11:13 AM CST
Thats funny when CDC has always said its the poorest that smoke and they make nowhere near 50,000 a year more like 30,000 if they have a good year and thats with food stamps and a trashy trailer to live in.
I spent ove 700.00 dollars on quit smoking patches along with a quit team they said at CVS.
A total failure from begining to end,they just wanted to get me hooked on the patch even the ACS quitline I had called simply wanted to get me hooked on the patch or gum. I tried Chantix and all it did was give me nightmares and thoughts of extreme things.I quickly ditched that pill and the costs of them.
Cold Turkey is the way to go.
I found out much later on that NRT drugs have a 98% failure rate and I had wasted 700.00 into Pharmas pockets for nothing.
Then I discovered the Blackmarket and it now only costs me less than 700.00 a year to smoke 2 packs a day and I feel great.
Its nice of the government to be concerned about us poorer citizens but your campaign only makes money for pharma and puts us thru madness.
Ive since moved and can smoke indoors again living free as god intended,nobody shames me nor holds their noses high.
Im a member of society again,an actual contributer where I had lost my last job because I couldnt quit smoking. Of course it didnt pay much but it was enuf to get by on and a lil left over. Now after moving to a smoking state I have a full time job and friends with a life.
I would never again hope the government trys to control peoples lives by criminalizing an act that isnt criminal to begin with.
Prohibition didnt work last time and neither do smoking cessation products,so I say dont waste your time. You will live longer and not be stressed out or treated like vermom for simply smoking.
Each of us has lifestyles many dont approve of they call it a sin,but to me and 50 million others we call it a virtue!
BTW my mother who also smoked her entire pregnancy with me and my other 5 siblings is still alive and smoking at 84. Her mother smoked and granddad even. All of us were born healthy and grew up healthy on the farm.
Ive truly become skeptical of all the claims being made about smoking and especially so called passive smoke which was used to justify making criminals of us smokers.
Ive read a bit on the subject and it seems I it was so deadly we would have seen tobacco die out 600 years ago as one single cigarette should have been enuf to kill when we look at what a passive smoker might ever inhale.
Truly Government so called researchers are either the best Liars in the world with great propagandists behind them or commonsense is simply devoid in this world any longer!
Theyre back again……but not much money for any blitzs this time.
Lawmakers to Again Attempt to Get Kentucky Smoking Ban Passed
Two Louisville lawmakers will again attempt to get a statewide smoking ban passed.
Representative Susan Westrom and Senator-elect Julie Racque-Adams have tried–and failed—to get such a ban through the past four legislative sessions.
Westrom, a House Democrat, blamed members of her own party’s leadership after a smoking ban failed to receive a floor vote in the chamber during the 2014 General Assembly.
Speaking this week at a legislative preview meeting held by the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, Republican Senator-elect Julie Adams said she believed the idea had enough support in the House to pass, if an up-or-down vote was held next year.
A smoking ban was introduced in the Senate during this year’s session by retiring Senator Julie Denton, but that legislation stalled in the GOP-led chamber. CN2 reports that supporters of a ban are pointing to Louisville—which passed a local smoking ban in 2006—as evidence that such rules don’t negatively impact businesses such as bars and restaurants.
Opponents say business owners should be able to decide whether or not to allow smoking on their property.
http://wkyufm.org/post/lawmakers-again-attempt-get-kentucky-smoking-ban-passed
I posted on it but don’t know if it showed up or not
Miss Westrum was at Fancy Farm this year and Im sure she ate some fine BBQ while there. But she also inhaled Billions of cigarettes worth of equal smoke as did all the rest!
Congratulations cookout fans you’ve just survived being around second hand smoke for 120,000 years of equivalent exposure! YOU SURVIVED CONGRADULATIONS!
Barbecues poison the air with toxins and could cause cancer, research suggests. A study by the French environmental campaigning group Robin des Bois found that a typical two-hour barbecue can release the same level of dioxins as up to 220,000 cigarettes.
Dioxins are a group of chemicals known to increase the likelihood of cancer. The figures were based on grilling four large steaks, four turkey cuts and eight large sausages.”
Even the CANCER SOCIETY has benefit cookouts yet they push for smoking bans! Talk about being Hipocrits! Heres a real sweety pie of a special hype The Dumbest Fundraising Event Ever? American Cancer Society Joins BBQ Meat “Cook Off” to Raise Money for Cancer Research NaturalNews)
Texans living in Navarro County are about to win a collective award for being the dumbest people in the world when it comes to diet and nutrition: They are hosting a BBQ meat cook-off to raise money for — get this — cancer research!
Even the Governor of Kentucky and all the Anti-smoking Activists were at Fancy Farm for the big Political Cook Off Cook Out yet they too survived Inhaling 10S OF BILLIONS worth of equal cigarette smoke.
Even there own Human exhaled Breath creates hundreds of the same chemicals found in tobacco smoke yet we arent outlawing HUMANS FROM INDOOR SPACES………
Human Exhaled Air Analytics…” Buszewski et al, Biomed. Chromatogr. 21: 553–566 (2007) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com…
Yo Harley, when I think of how many times I’ve committed the trifecta sin of barbecuing a nice juicy steak with a cigarette in one hand and an ice cold Coors beer in the other it makes me cringe. Surely, I should have been burning in healtist hell long ago.
Heck, I just checked the mirror to see if I was still alive and well and sure enough there was me staring back.
Or was I?