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posted by janrinok on Friday February 13 2015, @11:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-never-good-news dept.

"Who still smokes?" as Denise Grady reports at the NYT that however bad you thought smoking was, it’s even worse. A new study has found that in addition to the well-known hazards of lung cancer, artery disease, heart attacks, chronic lung disease and stroke, researchers found that smoking was linked to significantly increased risks of infection, kidney disease, intestinal disease caused by inadequate blood flow, and heart and lung ailments not previously attributed to tobacco. “The smoking epidemic is still ongoing, and there is a need to evaluate how smoking is hurting us as a society, to support clinicians and policy making in public health,” says Brian D. Carter, an author of the study. “It’s not a done story.” Carter says he was inspired to dig deeper into the causes of death in smokers after taking an initial look at data from five large health surveys being conducted by other researchers. As expected, death rates were higher among the smokers but diseases known to be caused by tobacco accounted for only 83 percent of the excess deaths in people who smoked. “I thought, ‘Wow, that’s really low,’ ” Mr. Carter said. “We have this huge cohort. Let’s get into the weeds, cast a wide net and see what is killing smokers that we don’t already know.” The researchers found that, compared with people who had never smoked, smokers were about twice as likely to die from infections, kidney disease, respiratory ailments not previously linked to tobacco, and hypertensive heart disease, in which high blood pressure leads to heart failure. "The Surgeon General's report claims 480,000 deaths directly caused by smoking, but we think that is really quite a bit off," concludes Carter adding that the figure may be closer to 540,000.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by gnuman on Saturday February 14 2015, @05:23AM

    by gnuman (5013) on Saturday February 14 2015, @05:23AM (#144872)

    I'm sorry, but in today's day and age, if you start smoking anything (including pot) for "recreational use", calling you an idiot should be enshrined in law.

    Why's that?
    What's wrong with letting people do what they want?

    More specifically, I should have said that "idiots" should apply to people that start smoking today (last 10-20 years?), not 30+ years ago, in the age of ignorance about smoking.

    As you may have noted, I have not indicated legality of smoking. I have no problems in people doing whatever they want to do, as long as it doesn't affect me. But it does not make said activity any more rational. As for comparisons of smoking to anything else, I can't find any.

      * smoking can't compare with religion, or even weird cults. Those at least have social aspects.
      * smoking can't compare with other risky activities, like motorcycle racing, or sky diving. Those don't kill you, unless you crash.

    Maybe cutting yourself is like smoking? No idea, but that activity seems to have about the same amount of positives - none. Although it is cheaper than smoking and some call cutting "art".

    I can't find *anything* positive thing about smoking. There is no positives about smoking from media (in most nations, at least). It is really incomprehensible to me why people would even try smoking today. Is it only peer pressure?? As a former smoker, maybe you can answer that.

    PS. A few times, when I walk outside a respiratory hospital, there are always people there, out on the sidewalk, in wheelchairs. Doesn't matter how cold it is. They are smoking, some through a tube in their trachea. Some with oxygen concentrators (disconnected and beeping). It is a really sad and pathetic sight. So yes, I do have some strong feelings about smoking.

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