Smokers live longer in my family

[Spike]

[glow=red,2,300]Smokers in my family seem to live longer. My gran is into her eighties and has smoked all her life outliving all her non smoking brothers and sisters. An uncle in his mid fifties who has never smoked or drank recently died from cancer. His brother who is my dad is a youthful 65 and smokes like a trooper. Anyone else have the same family trend ?[/glow]

[Mark]

Same here, anytime i ever think about giving up smoking i think of all my long living relatives that smoke. Longevity is in the genes man

[irisheyes]

same in mine

[emma]

i have checked this out with my gran.......doesnt seem to make much difference in our family........had one uncle lived until he was 96 and smoked from the time he woz 14.......as gran said to me everything in moderation and little harm can be done

[rainyday]

My father died from a heart-attack at 46 leaving 6 children (3-19 years) and a widow. He wasn't overweight. He was a heavy smoker.

But it doesn't make sense to base public health policy on my family history, or Spike's family history or Mark's family history, or Emma's family history. It makes sense to base public health policy on solid medical data which shows that, on average, smokers die younger.

[emma]

sorry about ur dad........ .. smoking obviously didn't render him impotent....... the so called solid medical evidence u mention says it should have

[rainyday]

emma said:

sorry about ur dad........ .. smoking obviously didn't render him impotent....... the so called solid medical evidence u mention says it should have

Nice diversion tactic Emma - I know you probably don't want to think about the fact that smoking almost certainly caused his premature death.

But if you do want to talk about impotence, please stick to the facts. I've never heard or seen any medical evidence that claims that smoking makes all smokers impotent. Smoking certainly affects fertility and can cause impotence. It will make it more difficult for a percentage of people to spawn offspring, but no-one every claimed that every smoker is impotent.

It might help stimulate sensible debate if we can stick to the facts instead of wild exaggeration.

[Mark]

rainyday said:

Smoking certainly affects fertility and can cause impotence.

- I know you probably don't want to think about the fact that smoking almost certainly caused his premature death.

How come you believe smoking almost certainly caused his death if his smoking didn't leave him impotent ? Are you saying smoke has some sort of deviant intelligence that can decide what ill effects it will deliver to each individual smoker ?

[rainyday]

mark said:

rainyday said:

Smoking certainly affects fertility and can cause impotence.

- I know you probably don't want to think about the fact that smoking almost certainly caused his premature death.

How come you believe smoking almost certainly caused his death if his smoking didn't leave him impotent ? Are you saying smoke has some sort of deviant intelligence that can decide what ill effects it will deliver to each individual smoker ?

It is difficult to know where to start explaining how ludicrous a question this is. But I'll do my best...

There is no suggestion of any 'deviant intelligence'. There is no suggestion that every smoker will suffer from impotence. The most recent study I saw showed men who smoked more than 20 cigarettes a day had a 60% higher risk of ED, compared to men who never smoked (see www.irishhealth.com/index.html?level=4&id=4697. Even if it had caused impotence, impotence is not necessary a total permanent failure to hold an erection. Some impotence sufferers have occasional difficulties holding an erection. So you cannot draw any sensible conclusion about the existence of impotence in this case or any case, unless you can review full medical records.

There is no suggestion that every smoker will die from a heart attack.

But you seem to be missing the main point of my post - which was to point out how ludicrous it is to draw conclusions about the effects (or otherwise) of smoking based on anecdotal evidence.

[emma]

rainyday said:

But you seem to be missing the main point of my post - which was to point out how ludicrous it is to draw conclusions about the effects (or otherwise) of smoking based on anecdotal evidence.

u are the only one drawing conclusions based on ancedotal evidence

[tanya]

With all the deaths on the roads and all the car related problems that go with it, we should ban driving as well shouldn't we? Deaths, injuries, trauma, repairs to cars and roads and even ditches. We could all based public health on our own experiences but we don't. Life is a risk and just because some people die because of that risk doesn't mean that the rest of us have to suffer because of it. It's not going to bring back your dad rainy day and he cannot be replaced by someone else. Everyone is entitled to take the risks that they want to take in their lives and using lies like passive smoking to make them do it shows how stupid some people are.

[S Breen]

The study mentioned above on the Irish Health web site is a perfect example of the junk science behind the anti smoking propoganda and crusade. There is no mention of who or where this study was carried out. 60% of the participants were smokers, hardly a reflection of smokers in the general population. Even then this tainted and loaded study can only point to "increased risk" Increased risk ? Increased risk above what baseline ? No mention of any control group ! This study is not worth the paper it was wrote on. It has no sceintific value or merit. Yet, it will be quoted and repeated as fact by people with letters behind their name, in turn brainwashing people like 'rainyday' and others into believing something to be true that amounts to no more than superstition and an old wifes tale.

[Spike]

Maybe tobacco is part of a vatican plot to stop us all mastrubating and screwing each other

[rainyday]

emma said:

rainyday said:

But you seem to be missing the main point of my post - which was to point out how ludicrous it is to draw conclusions about the effects (or otherwise) of smoking based on anecdotal evidence.

u are the only one drawing conclusions based on ancedotal evidence

Hi Emma - Have you actually bothered to read any of my posts? I didn't draw any conclusions for others at all from my family situation. Let me say it once more for the hard of thinking - It is quite ludicrous to draw any conclusion from the kind of anecdotal evidence posted in this thread.

tanya said:

With all the deaths on the roads and all the car related problems that go with it, we should ban driving as well shouldn't we? Deaths, injuries, trauma, repairs to cars and roads and even ditches.

Hi Tanya - We don't ban driving (just like we haven't banned smoking), but we do ban driving over the speed limit, and driving when drunk, and driving without seatbelt. and all those other driving behaviours that put others at risk. It is perfectly consistent that we have banned smoking in pubs.

sbreen said:

The study mentioned above on the Irish Health web site is a perfect example of the junk science behind the anti smoking propoganda and crusade. There is no mention of who or where this study was carried out. 60% of the participants were smokers, hardly a reflection of smokers in the general population. Even then this tainted and loaded study can only point to "increased risk" Increased risk ? Increased risk above what baseline ? No mention of any control group ! This study is not worth the paper it was wrote on. It has no sceintific value or merit. Yet, it will be quoted and repeated as fact by people with letters behind their name, in turn brainwashing people like 'rainyday' and others into believing something to be true that amounts to no more than superstition and an old wifes tale.

Hi SBreen - You are quite right to point out the lack of detail in the irishhealth.com article, but that does not indicate anything about the accuracy or otherwise of the underlying study. The fact that there is no mention of a control group in the short article does not mean that there was no control group. Why don't you contact the AMA and get the full detail of the original study and post your critique? Or perhaps you think that the views of anonymous posters are given more weight that the views of the American Medical Association?

[S Breen]

rainyday said:

Why don't you contact the AMA and get the full detail of the original study and post your critique?

Why don't you sir contact the AMA and get the full detail of the original study before coming on here and using the report back up your claims ? Any person with even a modicum of reason will see that if the survey contained 60% smokers, any results obtained are without merit.

This is a direct quote from a Michael Siegel a leading campaigner in the anti-tobacco movement from yesterday

"We are calling on policies that would result in children being taken away from their parents because of smoking in the home, preclude smokers from employment, and ban smoking virtually everywhere because we don't want our kids to be exposed to these social pariahs. We are using fallacious scientific claims to support our agenda, we are distorting the science, and we are widely misleading the public."

I strongly suggest Mr Rainyday that you read the rest of what this leading physician and anti-smoking activists has to say here : tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/