[oyster]

Do you think it is the time release? Bupropion has a pretty long halflife, and it has numerous active metabolites that stick around even longer.

[nightlight]

Alright, lets hear it. (Posting this for a friend)

You should advice your friend to check first couple recent papers (linked & discussed in the post there). The more recent one (from 2007) is titled: "Are lung cancers triggered by stopping smoking?"

[Josh]

You should advice your friend to check first couple recent papers (linked & discussed in the post there). The more recent one (from 2007) is titled: "Are lung cancers triggered by stopping smoking?"

...Regarding the alleged hazards of smoking, that's a PR from pharmaceutical industry. Tobacco smoke (from real, additive free tobacco leaf, not the junk supermarket FSC cigarettes) is an ancient medicine and the best single supplement, bar none, you can take for good health and longevity. There was a thread here on health benefits of smoking and a more recent one in another health forum focusing on longevity benefits. ...
Source: A post from nightlight @ ImmInst

Pardon me for lumping this assertion in with Anti-evolution claptrap as another line of research I will not be bothering to look at. Have we learned nothing from half a century of science? The evidence is so overwhelming. If you believe that smoking is good for you, I would be more than happy to do hill sprints, squats or burpees with you. If that sounds like it is too demanding for your clogged lungs, we can always go for a little stroll arround your local hospital to visit the COPD patients - you can explain to them how shitty their life would be if they had never smoked. If we had time, we could pop on down to the mortuary and checkout the glistening alveoli of lifelong smokers or their clean vasculature.

Utter hogwash!

J

[nightlight]

Pardon me for lumping this assertion in with Anti-evolution claptrap as another line of research I will not be bothering to look at.

That's surely a good way learn what you don't know (which is 99.99... percent of what is already known, and which in in turn is 0.00..1 percent of what will be eventually known). With the attitude so well optimized for learning, do you still believe that margarine is better for your health than butter? After all, that was a dogma of "public health" (i.e. con) that lasted decades and that every doctor, teacher and health pundit in media knew as absolute truth and parroted to anyone who would listen, even though the reality was precisely the opposite. In the meantime, those those paying for this "scientific truth" were making a nice chunk of change from the industrial waste fats, which would have otherwise cost them to dispose, but now, with a pinch of coloring and flavoring additives, plus few pinches of junk science it became a "health food" and a gold mine. In fact, that kind of con is precisely what pharmaceutical industry is replaying these days with tobacco.

Have we learned nothing from half a century of science? The evidence is so overwhelming. If you believe that smoking is good for you, I would be more than happy to do hill sprints, squats or burpees with you. If that sounds like it is too demanding for your clogged lungs, we can always go for a little stroll arround your local hospital to visit the COPD patients - you can explain to them how shitty their life would be if they had never smoked. If we had time, we could pop on down to the mortuary and checkout the glistening alveoli of lifelong smokers or their clean vasculature.

Utter hogwash!

You're merely repeating the feeds from the antismoking matrix that were already dealt with in detail in the mentioned thread.

[Benson]

Its not tobacco smoke specifically that is really the issue, its smoke in general. Your lungs are not designed to be exposed to fine particulate matter for extended periods of time and to add insult to injury, the nicotine in tobacco smoke paralyzes the cilia in the lungs and trachea preventing it from doing what it was designed to do and transport the particulate matter out of the lungs. The resulting constant irritation of the lung tissue is really the problem and that is a function of smoking period, regardless of how unadulterated and organic your leaf is...

[nightlight]

Its not tobacco smoke specifically that is really the issue, its smoke in general. Your lungs are not designed to be exposed to fine particulate matter for extended periods of time and to add insult to injury, the nicotine in tobacco smoke paralyzes the cilia in the lungs and trachea preventing it from doing what it was designed to do and transport the particulate matter out of the lungs. The resulting constant irritation of the lung tissue is really the problem and that is a function of smoking period, regardless of how unadulterated and organic your leaf is...

It's too bad that this poor 101 year old marathon runner and former military fitness instructor, didn't know about what lungs were "designed for" or he wouldn't have smoked since age 7 and might have then gotten a much better time in his recently completed London marathon.



Or imagine these two poor folks, the only two humans ever who had to blow out 120 candles on their birthday cake, and that with all their cilia paralyzed from decades of suffering the inhaled tobacco smoke. If these two poor smokers only knew what their lungs were "designed for", how much easier time their cilia would have had.



It is doubtful that any mortal is close enough to the "designer" to declare what lung or any other cells are "designed" for. Were your fingers "designed" to type on the keyboard, or just to hold branches, pick grubs... Nature has no taboos of that kind. Whatever works, goes. Hence the question of whether lung cells were "designed" for metabolizing tobacco smoke has to be investigated and answered empirically, through experimental science. If you visit that thread and follow up the papers mentioned, you will find that there has been plenty of experimental science in this field and anyone who takes trouble to examine the results will have a pretty good idea whether the lung cells were "designed" for metabolizing tobacco smoke.

The short answer, the sum total of myriad biochemical and physiological effects of tobacco smoke, is -- lifelong inhalation of tobacco smoke extends substantially the lifespan (~20 percent), reduces weight, improves mental performance, protects against environmental toxins,... Or even shorter: smoking is good for you.

[Benson]

Sadly we don't have photos of the millions of people who died prematurely from smoking because, well, they're dead.

And while I think you may have your tinfoil hat on too tight, if you would like to believe that smoking is good for you, by all means, light 'em up.

[nightlight]

Sadly we don't have photos of the millions of people who died prematurely from smoking because, well, they're dead.

That should say 'whose death was attributed to smoking' (by those making good bucks form making up such attributions) rather than 'who died... from smoking'. Otherwise, considering for example that those wearing bras are 12,500 times more likely to get breast cancer than those not wearing bras, one could equally well blame 'wearing bra' for breast cancers. Correlation is still not synonymous with causation, no matter how many times the pharma bought antismoking "science" declares otherwise.

And while I think you may have your tinfoil hat on too tight,...

I guess, that's one way to acknowledge you have run out of scientific facts to back up your position.

[Benson]

I guess, that's one way to acknowledge you have run out of scientific facts to back up your position.

That's right. I give up. I am sure I cannot locate any scientific evidence that links tobacco smoking to emphysema, lung cancer, COPD, etc. All I can come up with is this picture of the lung of a chronic smoker on the right and a non-smoker on the left...I am sure that black stuff is the improved health caused by the tobacco...

[nightlight]

That's right. I give up. I am sure I cannot locate any scientific evidence that links tobacco smoking to emphysema, lung cancer, COPD, etc. All I can come up with is this picture of the lung of a chronic smoker on the right and a non-smoker on the left...I am sure that black stuff is a marker of good health...

That's about as much of a scientific proof as would be showing breast pictures of person who didn't wear bra and a person who did wear bra and got breast cancer, since the latter is 12500 times more likely to get breast cancer than the former (which dwarfs statistical "risks" associated with smoking).

[Benson]

It's too bad that this poor 101 year old marathon runner and former military fitness instructor, didn't know about what lungs were "designed for" or he wouldn't have smoked since age 7 and might have then gotten a much better time in his recently completed London marathon.

Yes he might have.

Press reports indicate he took some 12 hours to walk the course (five hours longer than 98 year old Dimitrion Yordanidis, the verified oldest marathoner) although the official results don't even indicate that he completed the race...makes for a cute human interest story though.

[Benson]

That's about as much of a scientific proof as would be showing breast pictures of person who didn't wear bra and a person who did wear bra and got breast cancer,

You are right again. I have nothing to counter your unreferenced, web-published data with except this one measly peer-reviewed study I found that was published in the Lancet in 2008 (PMID: 18556244) that included a chohort of 280,000 men and 184,000 women in the US and determined that the rate of lung cancer for smokers was a barely detectable 60x greater for men and 52x greater for women...oh, and I did come across this other small study (PMID: 17724671) with about a cohort of about half a million people that showed the rate of head and neck cancer was a paltry 6x higher in smokers than in non smokers...

[nightlight]

Yes he might have. Press reports indicate he took some 12 hours to walk the course

The linked article mentions 12 hours as an estimate of his trainers before the race, on how long it may take him to finish. The BBC article after the race mentions his time as ' just under 10 hours'.

[nightlight]

You are right again. I have nothing to counter your unreferenced, web-published data with except this one measly peer-reviewed study

The longevity results for large series of animal experiments I cited are from the official report to the National Cancer Institute for the smoking research they contracted. Peer reviewed papers and monographs on these experiments were published by the researchers as well (see the longer list in tobacco documents archive that contains scanned copies of the full text of the published papers). The NCI report I brought up was simply much longer and more detailed than the papers or book chapters.

I found that was published in the Lancet in 2008 (PMID: 18556244) that included a chohort of 280,000 men and 184,000 women in the US and determined that the rate of lung cancer for smokers was a barely detectable 60x greater for men and 52x greater for women...oh, and I did come across this other small study (PMID: 17724671) with about a cohort of about half a million people that showed the rate of head and neck cancer was a paltry 6x higher in smokers than in non smokers...

You seem to be again confusing correlations with causation. As explained in more detail here, by that "logic" you could equally well conclude that 'wearing bra' causes breast cancers, since those who wear bras have 12500 times greater rate of breast cancers than those who don't wear bras. Or that statins cause heart attacks, since those who use statins have higher rates of heart attacks than non-users. Or that sunglasses cause sunburns since those who wear sunglasses will have more sunburns than those who don't wear them...

Statistical correlations on non-randomized samples (where the cause of the 'smoking' variable is not controlled or randomized by researchers or by nature) are consistent with multiple hypothetical models (see models (a), (b) and (c) in the mentioned explanation and more on importance of randomization few posts later). Leaping from statistical correlations on non-randomized samples to some wishfully hand-picked causation model (such as model (a)=smoking causes 'smoking related diseases') is a textbook example of junk science, which is all that antismoking "science" you are citing has on its side. All the hard science (experiments) goes the "wrong" way, demonstrating the beneficial role of tobacco smoke. That's why, sixty years since this "scientific" antismoking wave started, they are still parroting statistical correlations on non-randomized samples.

Instead of bringing up papers that are merely "discovering" the same correlations for the ten thousandth time, which are equally consistent with the causal model (a) and protective model (b), why don't you show something at the same scientific level of hard science (experiments), as I did.

You're firing paper spitballs (statistical correlations which completely lack resolution to differentiate between multiple causal models) against cannonballs (hard science, experiments, which pinpoint precise causal model, protective model (b) in this case). These experiments not only demonstrate that smoking doesn't cause harm to the test animals, but also show that it is highly beneficial, significantly extending the lifespan of test animals.

[Josh]

nightlight - I do not usually resort to ad hominem, but I cannot understand how one can possibly believe that smoking can be good for you. I can only assume that the quantitative epistemology module that you have studied was sponsored by phillip morris et al.

The tobacco lobby spent decades and millions of dollars in paying statisticians and scientists to undermine the mounting evidence that threatened their profits. The only good thing that came of it, was a treatise on the weaknesses of reasoning frameworks.

J

[djremix]

so my wife who quite and is loving how her quality of life improved since is wrong.

OK! puff puff pass

sheesh

[nightlight]

I cannot understand how one can possibly believe that smoking can be good for you.

You cannot understand since you haven't spent time examining the results of scientific research for yourself. Instead you have been listening second and third hand stories about this science, from those making a good buck out of scaring you away from smoking (most of them who are down lower on the scientific food chain, such as a regular physicians, teachers, journalists... are completely sincere about it, since they don't read the research first hand on mosty topics either, but simply parrot the feeds from the higher ups). Hence, my posts must sound to you as the ultimate heresy. All I am really telling you is to cut the corrupt/ignorant middlemen out and check the scientific papers for yourself (my posts have numerous links to the full text of the papers, e.g. you can start with recent thread in another nootropics forum, or in another health forum here). Then make up your mind based on all the scientific facts, not just the tiny, misrepresented subset fed to you by the antismoking matrix (and no, I don't work for tobacco industry or make a penny, or name or anything else in the material realm, out of all this).



Tobacco is an ancient medicinal plant honed for eight thousand years by over two billion lifelong test subjects for its health benefits. Any place it came to, it was immediately and spontaneously perceived as medicinal and used as a folk remedy for variety of ailments. It became popular and spread rapidly throughout Europe when royal physicians noticed its anti-inflammatory and decongestant effects (e.g. see also on potent MAOI B effects, not due to nicotine;) and started prescribing it to nobility for respiratory problems. Until 1950s medical textbooks advised smoking as relief for asthma. Smoking was compulsory for students in the elite boy schools of British Empire (perhaps because of testosterone boost) in the era when they ruled the world. Semai people of Maylasia begin smoking at age 2, just as they wean from nursing, then smoke worry free their whole life. To the amazement of the researchers, as reported in [BMJ Feb 26, 1977 p.580] by Dr. G.Y. Caldwell, full medical exam, included chest X-rays, of all 12000 adult Semai, didn't find a single lung cancer among them.

It will surprise you that despite vast research efforts over the last six decades, antismoking "science" still hasn't figured out how to cause a single lung cancer, or cause any harm at all (to shorten lifespan) to lab animals through lifelong inhalation of tobacco smoke, even at equivalents of highly concentrated 5+ packs/day and in the most unfavorable smoking conditions (e.g. without natural feedbacks in dosing and pacing of human smokers). No matter how hard they tried to maximize the harm, the lifelong smoking still extends lifespan (by ~20 percent), reduces weight, improves performance especially on cognitive tests, improves resistance to stress, hardships, pain and variety of toxic/carcinogenic exposures (due to near doubling of glutathione, SOD and catalse),...

With hard science squarely on the "wrong" side, all that antismoking "science" can do is parrot the same soft science of statistical correlations between diseases and smoking, observed on non-randomized samples of smokers, ex-smokers & never smokers. Such correlations on non-randomized samples are "soft science" since they intrinsically lack resolution to uncover the causal chains.

Such correlations would exist whether smoking causes those diseases or whether it is protective or therapeutic against them or their actual causes, just like use of heart medications will correlate with heart attacks, use of aspirin with headaches, use of neuroleptics with crazy behaviors, use of sunglasses with sunburns.... People who use sunglasses will get more sunburns than those who don't use them, yet the use of sunglasses doesn't cause sunburns, but it is merely a marker for sun exposure which in turn causes sunburns, hence the correlation. That is precisely how tobacco smoking becomes correlated with various diseases. Unlike sunglasses, which provide just one or two protective effects for eyes, tobacco smoke has dozens of protective and therapeutic effects for immune, endocrine, nervous and vascular systems. Tobacco smoking is thus a form of self-medication and a marker for variety of harmful exposures to industrial toxins & carcinogens, pain and hardships mental and physical,... Hence tobacco smoking will statistically correlate with the diseases caused by the very factors it is protective and therapeutic against (see more in earlier post).

Vast amount of research of tobacco smoke and its effects has been carried out in recent decades within hard science, very quietly, mostly by pharmaceutical industry (see one pharma research survey, or here or here) seeking to the uncover active components behind its myriad therapeutic and protective effects. At the same time, the pharmaceutical industry spends few billions every year on producing much more publicized antismoking junk science, on creating and financing "grass roots" antismoking loudmouth organizations, on buying of antismoking laws and regulations (e.g. see here or here). Pharma, of course, battles all other health supplements and natural remedies for the same reason. They are only much more vicious against tobacco since it is the single most potent medicinal plant and youth elixir known to humans, hence scaring people away from it yields them the greatest bang per buck invested. The extra profits from nicotine replacement, cessation therapies and extra antidepressants are small potatoes in that calculation. Just consider how much more they make in drug sales for the large numbers of extra Parkinson's and Alzheimer's patients alone, millions of poor folks, lingering for years or decades on expensive drugs, who would have never gotten those diseases had they started smoking (or didn't quit smoking). Add then the profits from the extra cases of asthma & allergies, diabetes, obesity, ADHD, Tourette, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, arthritis, preeclampsia, inflammatory bowel disease, cancer of uterus, endometriosis,... (see more links to papers here, here) and we're talking about some real money.

[kevbo]

Such correlations would exist whether smoking causes those diseases or whether it is protective or therapeutic against them or their actual causes, just like use of heart medications will correlate with heart attacks, use of aspirin with headaches, use of neuroleptics with crazy behaviors, use of sunglasses with sunburns.... People who use sunglasses will get more sunburns than those who don't use them, yet the use of sunglasses doesn't cause sunburns, but it is merely a marker for sun exposure which in turn causes sunburns, hence the correlation. That is precisely how tobacco smoking becomes correlated with various diseases. Unlike sunglasses, which provide just one or two protective effects for eyes, tobacco smoke has dozens of protective and therapeutic effects for immune, endocrine, nervous and vascular systems. Tobacco smoking is thus a form of self-medication and a marker for variety of harmful exposures to industrial toxins & carcinogens, pain and hardships mental and physical,... Hence tobacco smoking will statistically correlate with the diseases caused by the very factors it is protective and therapeutic against (see more in earlier post).

I'm all for alternative medicine and going against big pharma, not to mention I'm a smoker myself.. but the above does not make sense. You say that sunglasses are correlated with sunburns, which is a good point I guess.. because people who are in the sun typically wear sunglasses. Then, you agree that smoking is correlated with lung cancer, emphysema, etc., the list goes on; but offer no reason for this correlation. Are you saying that those with a genetic predisposition towards lung cancer have evolved to subconsciously want to smoke cigarettes in order to protect themselves? This would seem like the only reasonable - although very far-fetched considering our genes have probably not changed at all since we started smoking tobacco. Then again, you seem to reject the idea of evolution so that's not it. But if that were the case, then why, if tobacco smoke is so protective and therapeutic, do these people die of these horrible and painful diseases?

I'm keeping an open-mind so please enlighten me

[darius]

Tried brand name Wellbutrin XL 300mg Friday, and it did make me slightly anxious. More so than the generic, probably cause it has more of what it's supposed to have in it.

[nightlight]

Are you saying that those with a genetic predisposition towards lung cancer have evolved to subconsciously want to smoke cigarettes in order to protect themselves? This would seem like the only reasonable - although very far-fetched considering our genes have probably not changed at all since we started smoking tobacco.

That would certainly be quite far fetched. You need to take into account few additional scientific facts before a much less far fetched mechanism becomes apparent. Specifically, some still unknown components of tobacco smoke upregulate substantially the key internal antioxidants and detox enzymes (glutathione [or more recent ref cf. Fig 4, p. L1076], catalase and SOD, all nearly doubled). These (families of) enzymes are responsible for neutralizing and excreting virtually every environmental or industraial toxin and carcinogen we are exposed to (WIKI: glutathione, SOD. catalase).

A person living or working under any toxic exposures overloading their natural defenses (their levels of these enzymes, which genetically vary) would perceive a tangible relief from smoking because of the nearly doubled detox rates provided by the increased levels of these enzymes. They would also accumulate less of the toxins in their bodies over time. Hence, they would naturally have a stronger urge to smoke than a non-exposed person, regardless of the vicious social and economic abuses of smokers, especially if their genetically determined levels of these enzymes are inherently low. Therefore, they would be smoking at higher rates (and would smoke more) than non-exposed (or immune non-overloaded) population. While these doubled detox rates and antixoidant protection are highly beneficial, the toxins will still take their toll over time. As result, these people will simultaneosuly be smoking at higer rate than general (less/non-exposed or with stronger natural defenses) population and will also be suffering more diseases resulting from the greater long term exposure to the very toxins from which those enzymes (hence smoking) protect them. Just as sunglasses are a proxy for sun exposure, hence their use will positively correlate with sunburns, the smoking is a proxy for toxic exposures and immune overload, hence it will positively correlate with all diseases resulting form such exposures and overloads.

This mechanism is perfectly analogous to an observation that people who use gas masks (firemen, toxic disposal workers, people handling radioactive materials,...) will have more respiratory and other health problems in their lifetime than those who never used gas masks, while the ex-users of gas masks will fall in between. The only superficial differences are that the "gas masks" in the case of smoking are at the biochemical level (the doubled key detox enzymes), invisible to the naked eye, and that one isn't instructed to 'wear them' by a supervisor or instructor, but by the natural, built-in feedbacks from one's own biochemical networks (these networks are powerful self-programming distributed computers, running mathematically the same kind of algorithms as our brains).

That is the actual mechanism, the self-medication model, responsible for the observed statistical correlations of smoking and 'smoking related diseases'. Unlike the "harm theory" (i.e. correlations exist because smoking causes 'smoking related diseases') which does not take into account all the known scientific facts (it has to pretend they don't exist), such as the protective effects of tobacco smoke on internal detox enzymes, the self-medication model, like a properly solved puzzle, uses and fits correctly all the pieces of the puzzle. The "harm theory" has to suppress the most important piece of the puzzle, the decades of "paradoxical" animal experiments demonstrating potent life-extending effects of tobacco smoke, since such results outright contradict the "harm theory". The self-medication model is not only harmonious with these experiments, but it would predict precisely that kind of outcome before the experiment.

Occasionally, however well guarded against the facts of hard science (experiments), the "wrong" facts do slip into the antismoking matrix via the soft science in the form of "paradoxical" statistical correlations, as it happened in this 2006 study (pdf, discussed here and more here) of German aluminum potroom workers (exposed to toxic aluminum dusts and vapors). It turned out that smokers had six times less often respiratory problems than non-smokers and (emphysema-like) lung damage was found only in non-smokers. Since the researchers were actually paid to show how much more additional damage smoking does to industrial workers (this was in preparation for German smoking bans), the study title weasel words the key finding as "Lack of combined effects of exposure and smoking on respiratory health in aluminium potroom workers", even though they did find a signifacant protective effect of smoking. But since smoking can do only harm in our antismoking matrix, all they could safely declare (and still get their work published or get get reserach grants in the future) was that they didn't find any effect in this case. That they found exactly the opposite effect didn't make it into the title or into any explicit statement (other than figures). And to explain the figures, they had invent a fictitious phenomenon -- "healthy smoker effect" -- (cf. p 461) i.e. with no data or measurements to back it up, they simply proclaimed that the smokers in that potroom somehow all happened to be genetically hardier than non-smokers (of course, all that without ever analysing the genes of anyone there, since that's the only way their result can happen under the ruling dogma that smoking must do harm, so why bother with DNA). For hundreds more of similar anomalies see the analysis of Surgeon General's 1982 report (pdf).

That's how ridiculous it sometimes gets when they had to fit facts into the theory which is completely upside down from reality. To say nothing of all the vast hard science (animal experiments, beneficial effects on internal enzymes), which had to be banished altogether, Soviet style - it simply ceases to exist with no explanation, from the antismoking matrix.

[crauley]

I'm all for alternative medicine and going against big pharma, not to mention I'm a smoker myself.. but the above does not make sense. You say that sunglasses are correlated with sunburns, which is a good point I guess.. because people who are in the sun typically wear sunglasses. Then, you agree that smoking is correlated with lung cancer, emphysema, etc., the list goes on; but offer no reason for this correlation. Are you saying that those with a genetic predisposition towards lung cancer have evolved to subconsciously want to smoke cigarettes in order to protect themselves? This would seem like the only reasonable - although very far-fetched considering our genes have probably not changed at all since we started smoking tobacco. Then again, you seem to reject the idea of evolution so that's not it. But if that were the case, then why, if tobacco smoke is so protective and therapeutic, do these people die of these horrible and painful diseases?

I'm keeping an open-mind so please enlighten me

For the purposes of illustrating Nightlight's argument, the analogy between smoking and wearing sunglasses is particularly apt. Sunglasses are generally considered to be *protection* against the sun (UV rays). Moreover, although not protective for the body, they are certainly *therapeudic* for the person. (My eyes, e.g., are particularly sensitive to sunlight: I cannot stand to be without sunglasses on even a moderately bright day.)

Nightlight's argument is that smoking is precisely analogous. It is associated with disease for the very same reasons sunglasses are obviously going to be associated with sun exposure, and thus, usually, sunburns. On my understanding, his argument, in very rough outline, is this:

- Epidemiological studies show smoking is associated with various diseases. (However, even here there are enormous problems with this association: tons of anomolies which render the direct causal hypothesis completely untenable.)

- Assocation does not imply causation: further investigation is needed to support the inference from correlation to causation.

- Attempts at this further investigation have failed miserably, and in fact, tend to go the wrong way. E.g., see his discussions of randomized intervention trials, and animal studies.

- There is tons of evidence that smoking is indeed protective against, and/or therapeudic for, the exposures and/or diseases which are associated with smoking.

In the absence of cogent counterargument, I think the rational person is left no choice but to admit that Nightlight makes an extremely persuasive case. (You really should undertake a detailed study of his various links, which sometimes point to related argumentation in other posts of his, and sometimes to the science supporting his argument.)

The only alternative that I can see, is to decide not to -- or judge yourself unable to -- think this through for yourself, but instead: just believe what you're told to believe.

One other point worth mentioning is that not all of Nightlight's points are concerned with explaining the association between smoking and disease. Much of it also concerns the multitude of ways in which smoking is just plain good for you, altogether independently of any hypotheses about smoking and, say, lung cancer or emphysema and so on.

[nightlight]

Then again, you seem to reject the idea of evolution so that's not it.

That's not quite correct (btw where did that observation come from?). I do reject the simply minded neo-darwinian mechanism (evolution is result of random mutation+selection). My view is just slightly ahead of the most prevailing conventional wisdom, although it is well within one more recent perspective on evolution (complexity science). Namely, the underlying algorithm performing the search in the space of all possible DNA configuarions, as it changes from generation to generation (as population evolves) is far smarter and much faster than the dumbest algorthm possible, the blind trial and error, which neo-darwinian dogma postulates.

The cellular biochemical networks are distributed computers which model internally their envirnoment, including themselves (the self-actor), and can compute the next DNA transformation by playing this model forward in this (computed) 'virtual reality', until they find a change of self-actor that optimizes the outcome for it within their internal model of the world (just like a chess player who thinks ahead, plays imagined moves in his mind and picks the next move which fairs the best among the imagined game fragments).

Hence mutations underlying evolution are not random, but are computed and implemented by the biochemical networks, the same way evolution in every other realm of nature works such as evolution of sciences, cultures, technologies. The new, improved designs don't come about from inventors copying old designs and making copying errors (random mutations), which then get filtered in the market place and the best ones survive (natural selection). Instead, the inventors think and imagine new designs in their mind, play with them, try them out in their head and only then implement/realize them in the more expensive material realm.

What this new perspective, complexity science, brings in is the realization that the principles of operation and algorithms of human brain are by no means unique. Instead, they are ubiquitous throughout the nature, driving the actions from the biochemcial networks of a cell, through social networks, ecosystems, economies, cultures, languages,... These are all adaptable intelligent networks utilizing mathematically the same kind of algorithms (internal models, self-actor, what-if games in computed virtual reality/mind,.. ) in order to optimize the sum total of punishments and rewards they are exposed to.

Therefore, the "intelligent design" view of evolution is correct -- there actually is an unimaginably powerful intelligence underlying and computing evolution. In contrast, the neo-darwinian dogma dictates that there is no intelligence behind evolution at all, but only dumb random trial and error (only humans can have intellegence, apparently in that outdated, 19th century mechanistic simpleton scheme).

But, contrary to some "intelligent design" proponents of irrational bent, that super-powerful intelligence computing evolution is not, or at least need not be, super-natural (whatever that means). Rather, it is a part of nature, just as our human intelligence is -- a subtle natural process occurring within self-programming distributed computers (be it our brains or biochemical networks), which create and run virtual reality algorithms (mental processes), with all of the software being in the form of self-modifying code.

[kevbo]

I must say that's one of the best written posts on here. Frankly I think you bring up excellent points.

With that said.. would you not agree that the reason people continue to smoke is the increasing of NE/DA levels in the brain? Is there "hard science" that shows we can feel our levels of glutathione rise?

What do you think of this?: http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=18445563
Wouldn't this imply that in theory smokers would have a slower response of conversion to, or lower levels of the reduced form of glutathione (GSH)?

Also do you have a single thread, or a page that outlines essentially you're entire argument for this or is it scattered across the web? I'd love to take a further look at it.. its getting late now so I'm gonna look into some other things later.

Do you wanna know something that's really fucked up though? I used to be a member of imminst and was active about a year ago when a post was made, by you, which got me interested in the therapeutic benefits of smoking for nootropic purposes. I didn't necessarily believe that it was healthy but this was a time when I was experimenting with all sorts of things. The same day I read your post, I smoked my first cigarette. It almost brings a tear to my eye, LOL

You're a free thinker nightlight. Whether or not people like to admit it here you are one the most intelligent people around on these forums. I don't know if you're right or wrong.. at this moment I'm thinking a little bit of both, but it's gonna take some time to dig through your vast amounts of research.

[kevbo]

That's not quite correct (btw where did that observation come from?). I do reject the simply minded neo-darwinian mechanism (evolution is result of random mutation+selection). My view is just slightly ahead of the most prevailing conventional wisdom, although it is well within one more recent perspective on evolution (complexity science). Namely, the underlying algorithm performing the search in the space of all possible DNA configuarions, as it changes from generation to generation (as population evolves) is far smarter and much faster than the dumbest algorthm possible, the blind trial and error, which neo-darwinian dogma postulates.

The cellular biochemical networks are distributed computers which model internally their envirnoment, including themselves (the self-actor), and can compute the next DNA transformation by playing this model forward in this (computed) 'virtual reality', until they find a change of self-actor that optimizes the outcome for it within their internal model of the world (just like a chess player who thinks ahead, plays imagined moves in his mind and picks the next move which fairs the best among the imagined game fragments).

Hence mutations underlying evolution are not random, but are computed and implemented by the biochemical networks, the same way evolution in every other realm of nature works such as evolution of sciences, cultures, technologies. The new, improved designs don't come about from inventors copying old designs and making copying errors (random mutations), which then get filtered in the market place and the best ones survive (natural selection). Instead, the inventors think and imagine new designs in their mind, play with them, try them out in their head and only then implement/realize them in the more expensive material realm.

What this new perspective, complexity science, brings in is the realization that the principles of operation and algorithms of human brain are by no means unique. Instead, they are ubiquitous throughout the nature, driving the actions from the biochemcial networks of a cell, through social networks, ecosystems, economies, cultures, languages,... These are all adaptable intelligent networks utilizing mathematically the same kind of algorithms (internal models, self-actor, what-if games in computed virtual reality/mind,.. ) in order to optimize the sum total of punishments and rewards they are exposed to.

Therefore, the "intelligent design" view of evolution is correct -- there actually is an unimaginably powerful intelligence underlying and computing evolution. In contrast, the neo-darwinian dogma dictates that there is no intelligence behind evolution at all, but only dumb random trial and error (only humans can have intellegence, apparently in that outdated, 19th century mechanistic simpleton scheme).

But, contrary to some "intelligent design" proponents of irrational bent, that super-powerful intelligence computing evolution is not, or at least need not be, super-natural (whatever that means). Rather, it is a part of nature, just as our human intelligence is -- a subtle natural process occurring within self-programming distributed computers (be it our brains or biochemical networks), which create and run virtual reality algorithms (mental processes), with all of the software being in the form of self-modifying code.

Nevermind. I was only skimming through the posts and saw someone mention you and "anti-evolution" together.. I must have misread it. I thought you were like, religious or something.. but I should have known it would be something like that (I mean it in a good way). You have a great mind and great ideas. I'm not saying they are right or wrong, but I think people are doing a disservice to themselves by ignoring these posts and at least not having an open mind and/or presenting scientific evidence to counter his arguments.

[nightlight]

... On my understanding, his argument, in very rough outline, is this:...

Thanks. You indeed covered all the bases very concisely, accurately and in an easy flowing, idiomatic native speaker English (British?). Perhaps that will help convey the message. English is chronologically my fifth langauge (after Serbo-Croatian, Russian, Latin, Italian), taken up quite late in life for learning new languages (at ~20) and despite living in USA for some years now, it never became a second nature. Guessing when to put or not put an article, especially when sequencing nouns, or in which order to sequence multiple attributes... are still among the numeorus unsolved mysteries of English to me (the other four languages seem much more regular).

[nightlight]

With that said.. would you not agree that the reason people continue to smoke is the increasing of NE/DA levels in the brain?

For the correlations of smoking and 'smoking related diseases' to arise via self-medication model sketched, it is sufficient that only some fraction of smokers are motivated by the beneficial immune effects. As the antismoking pressures and abuse of smokers have increased, the mild dopamine rush from smoking became less relevant as a motivation for smoking, insufficient for many smokers to override the negatives, considering the numerous alternatives providing equal or stronger DA rush. Hence, those who persist smoking in the face of the rising social and economic pressures, would increasingly be from the self-medicating fraction, the people who truly need it to function.

Consequently, the fraction self-medicating for immune overload would naturally become a larger fraction of smokers, leading to stronger correlations between smoking and 'smoking related' diseases. That is indeed how those correlations evolved over the past decades here in USA, or how they vary among countries with different levels of antismoking pressures, eg. Asian countries, or Greece and Spain in Europe, where antismoking pressures were non-existent until very recently. had very low smoking-lung cancer RRs (some as low 1.5 or 2, while USA had 10-15 in 1990s, likely more today).

There are also several additional mechanisms how the antismoking pressures amplify the correlations between smoking and diseases (and nearly every other plight and hardship), efectively creating a self-fulfilling prophecy out of propaganda, at least at the level of superficial correlations. One such mechanism is that the public image of smoking as high risk activity, will naturally make thrill seekers and risk takers of any kind a larger proportion of smokers (since they don't care or in fact get a kick out of hazard). The same public image of smoking as a very unheathy habit will also increase proportion of smokers who don't care about their health altogether and have numerous other habits that conventional wisdom deems unhealthy (many of these habits, unlike smoking, may indeed be unhealthy). A third mechanism, the constant harping "smoking kills" affects those smokers who believe it via 'witch doctor effect' (negative placebo), outright harming their health.

Apparently all these harm maximizing mechanisms didn't create enough of the 'self-fulfilling prophecy' to satisfy the profit targets of the pharmaceutical industry and "health" bureaucracies, so recently they have unleashed, very quietly and without much public fanfare, the most brute and direct chemical posioning of smokers, en masse via the insidiously mandated so-called 'Fire Safe Cigarettes', focing smoker to inhale unspecified and untested for inhalation brew of fire-retardands and other 'fire prevention' chemicals. Unless there is a massive revolt and uprising by smokers against this outrage, this latest harm mechanism, the final solution of the 'smoker problem' via the outright extermination, will certainly strongly amplify the correlations of smoking with ill health and shortened lifespan.

Vast majority of smokers (including myself) were completely taken by surprise by this completely new level of torment (since it became a law a while back in many states, with automatic activation delayed by year or two, or even longer, it all hit from a blue for most of us) and have only noticed the suddenly odiously tasting cigarettes, which were giving them headaches, gag reflex, upset stomachs, nausea, sore throats,... Luckily, when I found out, I was already long making my own cigarettes, thus I wasn't affected directly (although I tried one from a friend and stomped in disgust it after few gag inducing puffs).

Is there "hard science" that shows we can feel our levels of glutathione rise?

You would certainly feel a relief from detox effects if your immune system was overloaded by some toxin (such as heavy metals e.g. mercury or lead). I recall reading a story last year from parents of an autistic kid who would snap into nearly normal function after injection of glutathione.

Other detox enzymes significantly upregulated by tobacco smoke, such as catalase (which, among others, neutralizes alcohol) allows smokers to drink much more before getting drunk than non-smokers. There is for example an interesting phenomenon of dramatically increased traffic accidents following smoking bans in bars. While the official "theory" of this phenomenon is that smokers end up driving farther to find a smoking place, that that doesn't quite work when the whole states ban smoking. My suspicion is that longer withdrawals and more quitting, or use of nicotine patches and gums (since nicotine isn't the component that boosts catalase), result in more former smokers and smokers with reduced smoking rates, which depletes their catalase and lowers their alcohol detox rates, who continue drinking as before, when they could chain smoke throughout. Thus they are now becoming intoxicated while drinking just as before, when they could drive home easily,

Note that it is not necessary at all for self-medication model to have a kind of an effect, where you start smoking and instantly your glutathione and detox rates shoot up, providing instant relief. The target of a model trying to explain statistical correlations is not to predict deterministic outcome, which happens every time, but merely to provide a plausile statistical bias inducing force, capable of shifting the statististics in a given direction. How does such force emerge here?

The social networks have their own intelligence, perceptions and memory operating at much slower "CPU clock rates", as it were, than our brains. Hence, in occupations characterized by toxic exposures for which glutathione (or catalase or SOD) are beneficial, there will be smokers and non-smokers. As you can see in that example of those German aluminum potroom workers, described earlier, the smokers had the easiest time, the fewest respiratory problems. The newly arriving young workers starting at that job, would instinctively start emulating and gravitating toward those that seem to be doing better. Hence they would tend to pick the habit from their workplace role models, and perceive relief perhaps some months later. This yields the statistical bias force pointing in the right direction. The antismoking pressures and attempts to quit, would then quickly reveal the difference, and a person who is experiencing immune overload would be motivated to ignore pressures and keep smoking. Hence, those pressures would only sharpen and amplify this 'biasing force'.

At some point this implicit, unconsious 'knowledge of the workplace', flickering sporadically in the dark in the form of transient sensations in many different individuals, reaches the conscious of some more perceptive fellow with a knack to pick a subtle pattern. Or, from a higher perspective, a node in that social network has picked the weak, spread out reverberations of the network, it resonated in sync with them, focusing and amplifying the information flow toward itself, then it decoded this focused network knowledge into the humanly recognizable form, and the knowledge became a kind of little tradition, a folk wisdom of that workplace or a profession, which the more experienced members pass down to novices, amplifying further the biasing force in the correct direction.

What do you think of this?: http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=18445563
Wouldn't this imply that in theory smokers would have a slower response of conversion to, or lower levels of the reduced form of glutathione (GSH)?

That experiment deals only with effects of nicotine on glutathone production and it differs from smoking in several important ways:

1) nicotine injection versus nested, biological feedback controlled cycles of nicotine inhalation by smokers,

2) very short term nicotine use (3 weeks), instead of long term smoking, which is relevant span for the immune effects.

3) huge dose of nicotine was injected, 0.5mg/kg, which, for an 80kg (175 pounds) person would be 40mg nicotine injection; that is pretty close to lethal dose (60mg), hence they were really observing effects of repeated acute nicotine poisoniong, a very unpleasant shock even at much lower dose; injecting this dose is like rapidly chain smoking 2 packs of cigarettes in few minutes, by lighting and inhaling 20 simultaneously... In fact this is how all animal experiments to show alleged harm to fetus from maternal smoking are done, except they inject pregnant mice 1-3 mg/kg, it's miracle they even survive such shock.

4) The upregulation of glutathione, catalse and SOD is not due to nicotine (whch on its own likely reduces this effects of the full tobacco smoke), but to some unkown components of tobacco smoke. Interestingly, the nootropic selegiline, which has similar (albeit not as selective at high doses needed for the full simulation of tobacco smoke) selective MAOI B effect as tobacco smoke (and is used for that reason in smoking cessation "therapies"), also has an effect of upregulating glutathione, catalase and SOD (albeit, again at a huge dose ~2mg/kg).

In short, tobacco smoke doesn't suppress (reduced) glutathione, except mildly in acute smoke inhalation. The longer term use raises the baseline of these enzymes (nearly doubling them), so that the small fluctuations with acute use become negligible. This is analogous to what happens in weight lifting exercises, where during the lifting, your muscle cells transiently deplete energy and lifting capacity, but then recuperate and in turn increase the reserves (strenghtening over time the muscle, their energy reserves and lifting capacity). The cellular biochemical networks are anticipatory systems, not some bottle that when you pour it out, stays empty. These network use any experience, such as the transient exertion and depletion to make prediction about future demands on them and them rework themselves to meet best these demands and still have some reserves at the end of the anticipated exertion. Hence they become bit stronger than before you started lifting the last time.

In fact, you can find numerous antismoking "science" papers claiming to show that tobacco smoking depletes glutathone, by measuring accute effect on glutathione relative to state before the cigarette, ignoring the raised baseline which dwarfs the small transient dip following a cigarette. Using that sleight of hand, one could equally well "prove" that weight lifting reduces energy and lifting capacity of your muscle cells, i.e. weight lifting makes you weaker. With enough weasel words around it and few omissions, it is true in some (irrelevant, deceptive) sense that weight lifting weakens your muscles. For example, if with maximum straining and willpower you can lift some weight 10 times, then if you are asked, right after the tenth lift, can you now lift it ten times? Well, of course not, you can't lift once more. There it is, the proof, the antismoking "science" style, that weight lifting makes you weaker.

The fact that they have no other choice but stoop to these kinds of cheap gimmicks aimed at absolute ignorants, after sixty years of intense research looking for the scientific "proof" of at least some harm from smoking, just anything will do, tells you more on how potent medicine this 'most precious gift of gods' truly is, than almost any other fact I brought up. Just imagine, if someone invested countless billions to research for sixty years the effects of weight lifting on muscles, seeking to prove that weight lifting is bad for you, and then came up with the 10 lift "proof" above.

That's in how desperately pathetic shape the antismoking "science" actually is at this point, if you only bother to get the scientific facts first hand, by reading the papers for yourself. If instead you just listen the second or third hand stories about science from the pharma mouthpieces or those duped by them, you would hear only "scientific experiments demonstrate that smoking depletes glutathione" or "causes oxidative stress" then finally "scientific evidence is overwhealming, debate is over" ...

Also do you have a single thread, or a page that outlines essentially you're entire argument for this or is it scattered across the web?

Not yet, unfortunately. I am presently just too busy with my 'day job'. A fellow smoker and one sharp lady (a mathematician and a writer, and then quite attractive, too, not sure how that happens), Stephanie Stahl, after discussions we had on another forum, was so inspired an elated by the "smoking is good you" realization, she wrote that nice page presenting various facts she found most interesting.

My current personal collection of scientific facts on smoking is couple orders of magnitude larger than that, and growing. When I get some time, that will become a seed of a web site, with large discussion board and smoker information center growing out of the debate and findings from the forum, with main objective of awakening every fellow smoker, and only them, to the core fact "smoking is good for you" (with full scientific backing on the site, of course). Debating or convincing others would be of no interest.

Once the critical mass of fellow smokers who have broken the spell of the antismoking death curse is reached, these good, working folks, all unchained from the antismoking matrix and outraged beyond words at all that was done to them all these years, the antismoking zombie will shatter into a puff of dust, having imploded into its own emptiness as soon as it became plainly visible to everyone. Within a single election cycle after that, the following scenes will become perfectly normal, as they once were -- a doc sitting in his office offering a cigarette to his old patient, so the two could discuss, while peacufully puffing smoke rings toward the ceiling in some kind of unspoken friendly rivalry, whatever it is that matters this time, and the ancient gods of sun, earth and fire, who conjured for us this 'most precious medicine', the best they knew how in a long forgotten age, will be winking down throught the magical blue curtain swirling below.

Do you wanna know something that's really fucked up though? I used to be a member of imminst and was active about a year ago when a post was made, by you, which got me interested in the therapeutic benefits of smoking for nootropic purposes. I didn't necessarily believe that it was healthy but this was a time when I was experimenting with all sorts of things. The same day I read your post, I smoked my first cigarette. It almost brings a tear to my eye, LOL

Mark it as your lucky day. There will come a time in your life when the fifteen or so good years with well functioning brain and slim agile body that this biochemical miracle plant will add to your lifespan will seem like a jackpot. Interestingly, the last half dozen or so friends and neighbors, well educated folks, all never-smokers, very health conscious, I mean the hard core, nose wrinkling, proselytizing kind, ranging from twenties to sixties, who chose to 'splain to me (usually by cornering me at parties, while I was taking a puff, minding my own business away from the crowd) why I ought to quit smoking, are now, ever since their lucky day, enjoying the benefits of this ancient youth elixir.

[kevbo]

Nightlight,

Your argument is extremely well-thought out and the amount of scientific research that you've gathered is astounding. Your idea that people are attracted to smoking because of the immune systems of smokers is interesting, especially considering the following research on the attraction of men to women:

When researchers carried out DNA tests based on particular genes of the immune system on these ‘attractive’ men it was found that these men were also blessed with these “good genes’.

In other words the study claimed that women were subconsciously selecting healthy men with genes that were different to their own in order to give potential offsprings a diverse mix of genes, and a strong immune repertoire.

Thus your idea becomes more plausible. Plus, from anecdotal experience, those who are around people who smoke tend to be attracted to smoking more than those who are not.

Perhaps you've seen this, or already linked to it.. but if you haven't:

Three new studies are providing some of the strongest evidence to date that lung-cancer-risk gene variants are common in the general population. The variants might also be connected to nicotine dependence. The remarkable collection of evidence appears this week in Nature and Nature Genetics.

Although smoking contributes substantially to the risk for lung cancer, there is also a genetic component to the risk. These studies show that a region on chromosome 15 that hosts nicotine receptor subunit genes is connected to lung cancer risk. The independent studies have come to notably similar conclusions, although the researchers disagree on whether the risk for disease is direct or mediated by smoking.

Could it be that those who are more sensitive to nicotine's addictiveness are carrying the gene for lung cancer? This would in theory compromise most of the smokers in the US today - the ones who find the benefit/risk to be in favor of smoking in spite of the stigmas today. Combine that with what you referred to as the "witch doctor effect"; the idea that smokers let their health go to shit because of negative schemas, ie. "I smoke, therefore I have bad health." Perhaps in the end it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I am not saying that I wholly agree with you nightlight, in fact I still believe that the correlation is too big to ignore. Also, in the recent famous study done at the University of California when they studied marijuana's link to lung cancer, it was shown that there was a positive correlation between amount of cigarettes smoked per day and the incidence of lung and throat cancer. This would support the idea that repeated cigarette smoke exposure increases the risk. Do you really think that those who smoke more were doing so subconsciously to "cleanse" their body from environmental toxins? Even if Big Pharma were to know that tobacco was protective and therapeutic, they would have one hell of a time telling people to ignore the outstanding correlation between lung cancer and tobacco. It is beyond the realm of our scientific certainty to say that we instinctively do things to regulate the levels of our internal antioxidants. After all, if you give a hungry person a choice of a cheeseburger or blueberries, I'd be willing to bet that the average person would choose the cheeseburger (though this is external antioxidants, I believe the same point applies).

Furthermore, its well known that nicotine increases angiogenesis, as well as the role of angiogenesis in the metastasis of cancers. It is almost certain that nicotine will then promote the spread of cancer.

And on the website that you posted, "smoking is good for you", it mentions the increase of telomerase activity. For those who don't know, my understanding of a general explanation is this: A normal cell, regardless of where it came from, can divide about fifty times until they begin to die off. This is called the Hayflick limit and has been implicated in aging. The reason for the Hayflick limit phenomenon is that protein (actually DNA that has no specific function) at the ends of chromosomes called telomeres are eroded away each time the cell goes through mitosis. After about fifty times, the telomeres are completely eroded at which time real, necessary DNA becomes destroyed. Essentially, if you could create an indestructible telomere, a cell would become "immortal" so long as it has what it needs to live. This is where telomerase comes in. It is an enzyme that does just this, BUT, it is my understanding that the only cells that produce telomerase are stem cells, gamete cells (sperm and oöcytes), and cancer cells. As such, the only things that would happen are that cancer cells would be more resistant to going into remission and possibly a fertility benefit, although this seems to not be the case The only way we would see an anti-aging effect is through the activating the gene that allows for it to be produced.

I am not doubting you on the therapeutic effects of smoking. Smoking has been proven to be therapeutic and protective in certain areas. However, what I am trying to debate is the incidence of lung cancer and emphysema which is far too great to ignore.

If I'm wrong please correct me.. I'm intrigued

[nightlight]

Your idea that people are attracted to smoking because of the immune systems of smokers is interesting,..

The coupling via immune effect I brought up is just one mechanism of self-medication, based on a mere tip of the therapeutic and protective effects of this ancient medicine. There are many more such effects, partially enumerated at the links I posted earlier. Any of them could produce similar self-medication coupling, which in turn would result in a statistical bias force tying smoking to variety of ill health conditions and other malfunctions (from biological to social), which in turn are tied to their own layers of effects, all now becoming tied to smoking. I also enumerated in the last post several mechanisms by which antismoking pressures create such bias forces, resulting in a sort of 'self-fulfilling prophecy effect'. Colby's book "In Defense of Smokers" deals with many more problems related to correlations of smoking with 'smoking related diseases'. Hundreds of additional anomalies and weaknesses of the statistical evidence are described in this critical analysis of Surgeon's General 1982 report (pdf). An authoritative 1978 paper "Smoking and Lung Cancer: the Problem of Inferring Cause" by P.R.J. Burch analyses in depth the problems of statistical evidence. H.J. Eysenck wrote couple books and several papers with further critical analysis of the statistical evidence (his last, 1997, paper is here, pdf). In short, even the mere statistical evidence of antismoking "science", the only realm which is inherently fuzzy enough for such con to exist at all, is far weaker and more anomalous then public is mislead into believing.

But, for the sake of argument, let's forget all the hundreds of anomalies, paradoxes and biases, and let's assume for the moment that they got all their statistical ducks in a row, all fits with good strong correlations. The question we can ask then is: what does that mean? What is the scientific significance of such statistical facts (if they were there exactly as claimed, which they aren't)?

The statistical correlations on non-randomized (self-selected) samples of subjects (smoker, ex-smoker, never-smoker) by themselves, no matter how strong, consistent and universal still only imply that smoking is node in some complex, largely unknown web of causes and effects in which smoking related diseases are terminal nodes. That's all it tells you. It doesn't tell you anything about where in that complex web of causes and effects (largely unknown, uncharted and unquantified by researchers) the smoking node fits, let alone that smoking node must have a positive causal feed into the disease node. None of that follows from any observed correlations on non-randomized (self-selected) samples of subjects {smoker, ex-smoker, never-smoker}. There are at least three models which could give rise to such correlations (i.e. there are at least 3 configurations in this web of causes and effects):

A) Smoking causes 'smoking related' diseases.
B) Smoking is protective/therapeutic against these diseases or their causes
C) There is some common factor CF which causally contributes to these diseases and to smoking.

Antismoking "science" simply declares that only model (A) exists, hence that is the explanation, period, debate over. For normal science the debate just begins at this point. The findings of correlations, implying models (A), (B) or (C) are a mere hint indicating that one or more of these three models is the mechanism behind the correlations. The correlations on non-randomized samples simply lack resolution to discern the picture beyond this whole set and to single out any of them as "The Explanation". It is the task of the much sharper instruments of hard science (experiments, randomized intervention trials) to zoom in and find out how is the web of causes and effects, underlying the observed correlations, laid out, what nodes connect to which others and how do causal effects flow between them.

Indeed, that's how the research proceeded in the very early phase of antismoking "science", back in early 1950s (the real start was actually in 1930s Germany, motivated by Hitler's antismoking hysteria; he is the spiritual father and the role model of our present antismokers). Hard science projects were funded, researchers got busy, smoking machines were humming, puffing hard on all their pipes, tens of thousands of lucky mice, rats, hamsters, dogs, monkeys,... got free cigarettes, all they can smoke, plus several times more,... All went as it should in normal science.

But then, as the first results started coming back, the sudden dead silence fell over the lands of antismoking -- all the results went the "wrong" way, the smoking animals did better, much better, in every way and from every angle they looked at. Nothing worked. Whatever poor scientist did, even pushing the smoke concentrations right up to the edge of asphyxiation, day in day out for the full lifespan of the test animals, they simply couldn't cause harm by the inhaled tobacco smoke. The smoking critters, always ended up living longer, staying thinner, sharper, tougher, happier... however they twisted it and tossed it around.

This ancient medicinal miracle plant, the 'most precious gift of gods' as shamans understood it in ages past, like a kind of Asimov's robot software programmed into the biochemical networks of the tobacco plant by 'ancient gods' of sun, earth and fire eons ago, simply wouldn't do harm to its master, no matter what. It's just that good. Well, heads were rolling, new teams were brought in, still no luck. By 1958, the mathematical genius and father of modern scientific statistics R. A. Fisher, noticed the dead silence and subsequent squirming in the land of antismoking "science" and called their bluff (pdf):

But the time has passed, and although further investigation, in a sense, has taken place, it has consisted largely of the repetition of observations of the same kind as those which Hill and his colleagues called attention several years ago. I read a recent article to the effect that nineteen different investigations in different parts of the world had all concurred in confirming Dr. Hill's findings. I think they had concurred, but I think they were mere repetitions of evidence of the same kind...

Well, here we are, half a century later since Fisher threw the gauntlet, and antismoking "science" is still stuck in that same statistical hint loop, churning more and more correlations on non-randomized samples. As for hard science, the experiments, that's still a no go region, a part of the town you just don't go to. See the 2005 survey of experimental field by the authority in this field, S. S. Hecht (discussed here), with his funny euphemism for the persistently "wrong" key outcome that he refuses to name (increased longevity in smoking animals) "which complicates the interpretation of data." (p. 1489), insisting that to avoid the above "complication" that "The 4 month recovery period is absolutely necessary", i.e. what he is trying to say, but just can't get it out, is that to make sure smoking animals don't end up living longer, forcible abrupt quitting must be imposed. As to why the forcible quit makes it "work", he said "the reason for this is not clear." If you look the dramatic survival graphs of NCI experiments brought up earlier, or this one on mice from 2005 (and similar one from 2004 on rats), the reason is pretty clear -- otherwise, the smoking test animals live longer and stay thinner, hence you can't claim with straight face that smoking caused harm to their health.

Perhaps you've seen this, or already linked to it.. but if you haven't:

Could it be that those who are more sensitive to nicotine's addictiveness are carrying the gene for lung cancer?

Yes, of course I ran into several recent papers on this result linking common alleles of some genes with simultaneous predispositions to lung cancer and to smoking (your link leads to login screen, though, not a paper). That is the "common factor" model (C) above, which Fisher also suggested as a possibility to avoid statistical anomalies from the 1950s studies. That finding further diminishes model (A) as necessary to explain the statistical correlations.

I am not saying that I wholly agree with you nightlight, in fact I still believe that the correlation is too big to ignore. Also, in the recent famous study done at the University of California when they studied marijuana's link to lung cancer, it was shown that there was a positive correlation between amount of cigarettes smoked per day and the incidence of lung and throat cancer.

I haven't looked mj research, but correlations on non-randomized samples in any domain is a low resolution tool, which doesn't tell you anything beyond providing a hint for models (A), (B) or (C).

This would support the idea that repeated cigarette smoke exposure increases the risk. Do you really think that those who smoke more were doing so subconsciously to "cleanse" their body from environmental toxins?

The feeling of relief, such as from sixfold reduction in respiratory problems among smokers, as shown in that German aluminum worker study discussed earlier, is not all that "subconscious" feeling. If you came as a new worker into that plant, then saw smokers doing just fine and nearly all non-smokers coughing their lungs out from the noxious aluminum dusts, it wouldn't take you long to go with what works and start smoking (that's the example of 'statistics biasing force'). Indeed, the study also showed much higher rate of smoking among the potroom workers compared to those working outside (who were much less exposed to aluminum). Hence the hypothesized 'biasing force' of self-medication model isn't even hypothetical any more in this case, since it has indeed produced the expected kind of bias.

Even if Big Pharma were to know that tobacco was protective and therapeutic,

Well, of course they know. Most of the results of the benefits are from pharma sponsored research as it sought for decades to 'steal' some of the healing secrets of this medicinal miracle plant. That's also why you don't hear much about hard science from the antismoking "scientists". The only remaining place in which they can pull their con and get away with it, is the soft and fuzzy realm of junk science (statistical correlations on non-randomized samples followed by the unwarranted leaps of logic to model (A), the 'harm theory').

they would have one hell of a time telling people to ignore the outstanding correlation between lung cancer and tobacco.

As explained at top of this post, even the touted statistical correlations, are much weaker than often claimed, and rife with hundreds of anomalies and paradoxes. But even if they can straighten that out some day, and it works out exactly as they wish, it still remains low resolution method which cannot discern beyond the set of models, (A), (B) or (C). There is no scientific basis in cherry picking (A) and declaring the rest doesn't exist.

It is beyond the realm of our scientific certainty to say that we instinctively do things to regulate the levels of our internal antioxidants.

Your body and every one of your cells continuously regulate far more than just levels of antioxidants every millisecond, 24/7. Many such low level self-regulations manifest eventually in the form of wants, cravings, sensations, recognitions of patterns, realizations, behaviors, habits, customs, traditions,... conscious or otherwise. The information about benefits and harms finds its way to transform into actions. Even cats and dogs, when they get sick instinctively seek and nibble on some plants. Cravings of pregnant women for certain foods is well known. General pattern of these kinds of information flows, up and down the hierarchy of networks that make up our cells, bodies,... through social networks was sketched here.

After all, if you give a hungry person a choice of a cheeseburger or blueberries, I'd be willing to bet that the average person would choose the cheeseburger (though this is external antioxidants, I believe the same point applies). p.

If he is hungry, yes. Recalling again the aluminum worker case, the relief from respiratory problems provided by smoking, is quite perceptible as well, be it directly or by noticing how others, who have been there longer, are doing. Tobacco has been perceived as medicinal spontaneously and automatically in every place it spread to. It provides so many forms of relief (e.g. of pain and anti-inflammatory effects, then nootropic effects, ... all of which are nearly instant), that whatever caused the initial urge to smoke, eventually it will end up manifesting the longer term benefits locking in the "deal" (such as upregulated antioxidants & detox enzymes, MAOI B, cholinergic effects, reduced apoptosis and amyloidosis, ...).

Furthermore, its well known that nicotine increases angiogenesis, as well as the role of angiogenesis in the metastasis of cancers. ...

And on the website that you posted, "smoking is good for you", it mentions the increase of telomerase activity. ..., BUT, it is my understanding that the only cells that produce telomerase are stem cells, gamete cells (sperm and oöcytes), and cancer cells. As such, the only things that would happen are that cancer cells would be more resistant to going into remission and possibly a fertility benefit, although this seems to not be the case The only way we would see an anti-aging effect is through the activating the gene that allows for it to be produced.

Both upregulations you bring up, of angiogenesis (via multiple mechanisms) along with telomerase, I ran into in the very context you bring up -- their potential to become harmful if person gets cancer. In healthy individuals, though, both are quite beneficial (e.g. whenever some mechanisms for boosting telomerase activity are discovered, they are often labeled 'fountain of youth').

You are clearly not aware as to how exactly you were duped here by the antismoking con men, or even that you were duped at all, into conclusion that smoking is harmful, so let me take apart this sleight of hand, which is quite common in the antismoking "science".

In a cancerous state, there is a dramatic reversal of values -- many things that were good for you before cancer, become bad for you when you get cancer, and things that were highly harmful when you were healthy, suddenly become therapeutic. For example, getting your limb amputated, stomach or a chunk of brain taken out, getting beamed by the high dose hard radiation, ingesting toxic chemo brews -- are all highly harmful for you now, yet they become beneficial when you get cancer. On the other hand, having good, strong vascularization and circulation (especially in heart and brain) is good for you now, yet all that has to be suppressed if you get cancer (at the cost of higher heart attacks & strokes). Strong telomerase activity, which most obviously keeps your hair growing, but also any other cells replicating reliably (e.g. in brain, muscle,...), hence vital for good health and youthful performance, suddenly becomes a deadly liability which has to be suppressed through chemo and radiation, even though your hair falls out, your brain goes into a dull stupor, your muscles waste,...

This "reversal of values" phenomenon in cancerous state is quite analogous, on the level of social organism, to very similar reversal of values in a war. For example, angiogenesis is analogous to building roads, while telomerase is like some vital parts of industrial repair facilities. Both, the roads and industrial repair are beneficial and vital for a social organism, a nation, to function well. But in a war, they can become liability, as for example the good roads in Belgium and France became in the blitzkrieg phase of WWII, when Hitler's panzers used them to occupy both countries very rapidly. Then they used industrial facilities (repair and all) in both countries to further build up German war machine. In contrast, the poorly developed Balkan countries (Yugoslavia, Greece), with few good roads and almost no industry, gave Germans quite a bit of grief throughout the war. Thus, the liabilities of peace time suddenly became advantages in war time.

Imagine now, someone arguing against building or repairing roads and bridges, or industrial repair facilities, in USA today, by pointing to the example of France of WWII and declaring, "roads and repair facilities are bad for a country". Would that convince you that roads and repair facilities are bad and we ought not to build any or do repairs? That's exactly the kind of riduculous argument above about angiogenesis or telomerase. Yep, if you do get an aggressive cancer, lots things will go upside down. Even the tobacco smoke, the single most potent medicinal substance known to humans, which is as good for you as anything ever known, might need to undergo a closer review.

Is anything known about the latter? Was there such a review? After all, recalling the analogous "reversal of values" in a war, one would notice, that indeed, while roads may be used by aggressor to occupy the country, they can be used by defenders, too, to mobilize and move forces and equipment to the right places, to reinforce and resupply its borders... Hence, one cannot isolate one or two effects (be it roads or angiogenesis), and come to a proper evaluation of the net value of some activity (be it rebuilding infrastructure in a country or smoking), without looking at the wider context with more scenarios and possibilities included.

In fact, the S.S. Hecht's review of animal experiments mentioned above, along with the mentioned 2004 rats and 2005 mice experiments, show precisely what the real net effect of smoking is in the case of cancer -- it still extends the life of cancerous animals (see the graph above). Hence the net effect is still, somehow positive despite the potential downside when looking at the two effects in isolation, while excluding artificially all the rest. Hence, if I were to get cancer some day, I would certainly keep smoking, maybe even boost the dose some (those mice & rats were at ~5 packs a day equivalent). In fact, as Hecht's review shows and as he also strongly emphasizes, the only way to make the smoking animals come out worse off (or at lest to appear so on lesion counts in cherry picked tissues) is to make them quit smoking when they get cancer.

What happened to higher angiogenesis & telomerase in those experiments? Didn't they make cancers worse? Not actually. It only shifted and redistributed the cancer around, biasing it somewhat toward areas with better vascularization (lungs, bronchi, throat), without changing the total amount of cancerous tissue. But apparently, the additional vitality and toughness, stronger detox, lower weight, ... from smoking, kept the smoking animals with cancers alive for longer.

[crauley]

I just want to underscore some of the points Nightlight makes, that address your specific concerns, so that they don't get lost in the wealth of his commentary:

I am not saying that I wholly agree with you nightlight, in fact I still believe that the correlation is too big to ignore.

I don't understand what you mean when you say the correlation is too big to ignore. Indeed, he emphasizes the anomolies to the blanket assertion that there is such a strong correlation. And in so far as he acknowledges a correlation, his (oft repeated) point is that correlation does not imply causation, no matter how strong that correlation is.

Also, in the recent famous study done at the University of California when they studied marijuana's link to lung cancer, it was shown that there was a positive correlation between amount of cigarettes smoked per day and the incidence of lung and throat cancer.

From this remark, I speculate that, perhaps, your point about the correlation being 'too big to ignore', is the existence of a dose-response relationship in this study. But how is such a relation inconsistent with the self-medication model? To take a simplistic example (which is the best I can personally do): the more stressed I am, the more I smoke, and indeed, this is surely fairly generalizable. Now suppose that stress is correlated with a disease of some sort; in that case, and in so far as my experience is characteristic, there will be a corresponding dose-response relationship between smoking and that disease. But suppose further, for the sake of this argument, that smoking doesn't play a causal role in that disease. The consequence of this thought experiment is that smoking stands in a positive dose-response relationship with the disease, yet plays no causal role. (I have here assumed that smoking is only therapeutic for exposure to stress.)

This would support the idea that repeated cigarette smoke exposure increases the risk.

On the technical definition of risk, it doesn't *support* it. Rather, it logically entails it. And on the non-technical, everyday notion of risk, it doesn't support it in the slightest, at least not relative to the other hypotheses under consideration (e.g., self-medication, genetic, ..., or any combination of these).

(BTW Nightlight, not British: Canadian.)

[crauley]

For those who don't know, my understanding of a general explanation is this: A normal cell, regardless of where it came from, can divide about fifty times until they begin to die off. This is called the Hayflick limit and has been implicated in aging. The reason for the Hayflick limit phenomenon is that protein (actually DNA that has no specific function) at the ends of chromosomes called telomeres are eroded away each time the cell goes through mitosis. After about fifty times, the telomeres are completely eroded at which time real, necessary DNA becomes destroyed. Essentially, if you could create an indestructible telomere, a cell would become "immortal" so long as it has what it needs to live. This is where telomerase comes in. It is an enzyme that does just this, BUT, it is my understanding that the only cells that produce telomerase are stem cells, gamete cells (sperm and oöcytes), and cancer cells. As such, the only things that would happen are that cancer cells would be more resistant to going into remission and possibly a fertility benefit, although this seems to not be the case The only way we would see an anti-aging effect is through the activating the gene that allows for it to be produced.

I am completely incompetent to evaluate your understanding on this subject. But the link you gave did seem to me to involve *self-selected* smokers and nonsmokers. If so, then on your understanding, we cannot legitimately infer from their results (as you seem to do) that there is no fertility benefit. (Of course, we cannot legitimately infer that there is a fertility benefit either, or that there is a detriment. On your understanding, it is a hint for further study.)