shawn hirn

In an article published today on cnn.com they say that by the year 2020,
the typical 18-year-old will gain 0.31 years due to the drop in smoking
rates (above and beyond life span increases caused by other factors).
Unfortunately, the increase in obesity rates during the same period will
reduce life expectancy by 1.02 years.

Here is the full story ...

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/12/03/obesity.smoking.lifespan/index.html

the big n

Given some of the crap that you continually stuff down your own gullet
of the hi-fat, hi-cholesterol, and hi-salt and hi-sugar content,
perhaps you should mind your own business first, you silly meddling
neurotic. More credibility will come with less hypocrisy.

I think you are wrong in this case, Martha. The study I read concluded
with the numbers, 17 year-old, 0.33 due to smoking drop, and 1.04 on
the junk food number. Damn, how do they get those numbers so accurate
and pecise??

TBN - fire'n one up. Oh-oh, just dropped .000000000000001 years in
life expectancy (give or take a couple "0"'s). LOL!

robert

It's an established scientific fact that smoking reduces life expectancy by 18 years. The
article says smoking will decrease 21 percent between now and 2020. That means 4% will
quit smoking and thereby gain 18 years. Simple math (.04 * 18) tells us average life
expectancy will increase .72 years. This error adds to the growing body of evidence on the
ravages of nicotine deprivation on math skill, which caused budget deficits to go up as
smoking went down.

From the article:
"If we don't intervene, we are in trouble," Olshansky adds.

Reversing the obesity trends reported in the study will likely require a concerted public
health campaign similar to the one that has reduced smoking rates."
Antismokers know <wink> "campaign" and "intervene" are euphemisms for bans and taxes. In
order to persecute fatties, we must find the equivalent of second hand smoke, something
that irritates the rest of us. Don't worry about legitimacy, we have 'scientists' who can
spin anything into a do***ented threat.

My first thought was making airlines charge by weight. Recall how antismoking started on
airplanes. It's a start, but we need a way to remind fatties of our superiority every day,
not just once or twice a year. Here's ammunition:

"A new study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and done at Harvard Medical
School, claims that not only do fat people do great harm to themselves but, through the
influence of social network, can harm friends, especially close friends, by making it
easier for them to overeat. Not only food, it turns out, but the wrong friends can make
you fat."

The author goes on to reveal our secret -- it's not about fat, it's about social class.

"Without the aid of any studies and no statistics whatsoever, I should have thought that
much obesity is a social-class phenomenon. Politically incorrect as it is to suggest this,
many of the poor or lower-middle classes seem overweight, especially in urban settings,
where junk food is readily available, relatively cheap and requires no work to prepare.
There also seems to be much obesity among those living in rural areas, where the whiplash
of fashion does not crack.

The rest of the nation -- we so-called educated classes, striving to be
starved-to-perfection thin, terrified of eating any food that hinders our ability to live
just beyond forever -- eats hesitantly, anxiously. But at least, so far as can be known,
we eat relatively healthily. Pass the arugula."
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB118593336631384258,00.html%3Fmod%3Dopinion%26ojcontent%3Dotep

Geez, if he know more about statistics, he would have revealed the trick behind spousal
second hand smoke studies is concordance bias. Needless to say, this rogue writer has been
replaced.

nightlight

Smoking doesn't reduce life expactancy. At most, it is statistically
associated with reduced lifespan. But so is a visit to hospital,
surgery, taking of prescription meds,... and myriad other factors,
harmful or beneficial.

In animal experiments tobacco smoke extends lifespan in variety of lab
animals, by about 10-20 percent compared to non-smoking controls,
under variery of other conditions (genetic variations, coexposures,
exposure techniques,...) and even at smoking levels at the edge of
asphyxiation (e.g. 5+ packs/day condensed into 6h/day intense smoke
inhalation). After six decades of our "scientific" antismoking, the
highly motivated scientist$ eager to demonstrate harm from smoking
haven't figured out as yet how to shorten lab animals lifespan via
inhalation of tobacco smoke, short of apsyhxiating animals (you can
produce the latter kind of harm with plain water, too).

Check for example the large series of experiments sponsored by
National Cancer Institute (discussed further with links to refs in [1],
[2]), which they undertook in early 1970s in order to provide
scientific backing for the planned workplace smoking bans. Poor folks,
they really meant well -- to show how much more damage industrial
carcinogens and toxins will do when coupled with tobacco smoke. For
test animals, they picked Syrian Golden Hamsters, known previously to
be particularly sensitive to tobacco smoke. Everything else was done
just right, too, the heavy exposure at near asphyxiating smoke
concentrations, no natural feedbacks to control dosing and pacing
(enjoyed by human smokers), Hepa filtered air for non-smoking
controls, biochemically highly damaging once a week quit-for-day
"recovery" periods,... Just imagine the faces of the NCI committee
members when the results of their pricy investment for this massive
series of experiments came back (from the final report p.40, pdf):

-------- quote
With the exception of the two asbestos-exposed groups (Groups 5 and
6), the groups exposed to cigarette smoke lived significantly (p<0.05)
longer than their sham-smoke-exposed cohorts. The hamsters exposed to
asbestos plus cigarette smoke also outlived their sham-smoke-exposed
cohorts; however the difference was not statistically significant.
Asbestos decreased the lifespan of the asbestos-exposed groups and
thereby masked, to a degree, the difference in the survival between
the smoke-exposed animals and their sham-smoke-exposed cohorts which
is so readily apparent in other groups (Figure 23).
------ end quote


1. http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=24284&view=findpost&p=263844
2. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2262644/posts?page=#13
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2032105/posts?page=36#36
3. SIGFY (smoking is good for you) page:
http://www.stahlheart.com/wispofsmoke/goodforyou.html

shawn hirn

Where did you get that 4% number from?

Yup. I agree totally. One thing Uncle Sam (the USDA) should stop doing
immediately is including sugared soft drinks in its food stamp coverage.
Just that step alone will encourage many people to stop consuming
totally empty calories. This is certainly not the only step, but it is
an easy one to implement and it would have positive effects fairly
quickly and save us taxpayers some money.


You are not the only one to suggest that idea, but how would it work? If
airlines charged by weight, it would be impossible for passengers to
know in advance what their airline tickets would cost, not to mention
that it would totally scuttle online ticketing and probably make the
wait to check in for flights excessively long so people can be weighed.


Same with family and it works with smoking too. I bet most (not all)
smokers come from families where the parents smoke. Obesity is the same
situation. If you are obese (20% or more above your ideal body weight),
odds are, so are your parents and siblings. Social networks also are a
powerful influence there with eating, smoking, not to mention drinking.


I totally agree, but there is a genetic factor that plays a role in it
too. Some people are more disposed to addictive behavior, be it smoking,
overeating, or alcohol abuse than others.

the big n

Solid thinking, Twinky. Nail the poor while over-indulgent, selfish,
consumer gluttons like you can jockey for the front of the line.
It's obvious by your trolling history of shallow and ill conceived
input that you are not very well read and your researching skills go
no further than google search.

Allow, then, The BIG N to recommend some reading for you: Regulating
the Poor by Richard Cloward. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy
(read it also), it will help cut through some of your appalling
stupidity. Silly-ass yuppie.

Wait till they start the ban on poor social skills and mindless
palaver. They'll probably begin with government control of iphones and
attention seeking trolls. Man-Oh-Man Twinky, will you be screwed or
what?? That's 75% of your existence. LOL!!

TBN - luvin' the naiveté

robert

20% smokers * 21% quitters = 4% of the population


The Texas sales tax code may be a useful guide. Restaurant and vending machine food is
taxable; grocery store food is generally not taxable, except:

Not eligible for food stamps and taxable in Texas:
...Alcoholic beverages, tobacco
...Pet food
...Dietary supplements, pills, health and beauty aids.
...Anything sold hot.
...Nonfoods such as cleaning supplies and paper

Eligible for food stamps but taxable in Texas unless bought with food stamps:
...Candy
...Soft drinks, whether or not carbonated, containing less than 50% fruit juice.
Bottled water is non-taxable; one drop of flavoring makes it taxable.
...Ice
...Non-dairy frozen novelties. Popsicles are taxable; fudgesicles are not.

Not eligible for food stamps if the food will be consumed in the store. Taxable in Texas
unless paid for with food stamps:
...Single serving ready to eat. A 6 oz bag of potato chips is taxable; 16 oz bag is not.
A sandwich is taxable, unless it's frozen.

Rules have changed back and forth due to disputes on: salt (kosher and rock), distilled
water, donuts and bakery products (once taxable if quantity was 1-5, now taxable only if
served on a plate).


The same way UPS shipments work -- you enter weights on the web page, that's what you pay
for. If they don't believe you, they weigh the thing en route and charge your credit card
for the difference. By the tiime you find out, a month later, it's too late to dispute the
upcharge.

Every time I move, I ship six 70 pound trunks to myself at the next location via UPS. It's
a cheap way to move, about $50 per trunk depending on distance. I weigh the trunks with a
digital scale accurate to a tenth of a pound. At random times, someone inside UPS deems
them overweight by 20 pounds and charges my credit card an extra $20-30 per trunk. There's
nothing I can do about it. UPS pickup trucks don't have scales on board.

Nonsense. Airlines know which seat you'll be in. It would be simple to put a strain guage
under each seat. If they need more income, follow the UPS model and call everyone a liar.


20% today, 10% next year, 1% in five years. You know the drill. Get your foot in the door
with reasonable limits, then slowly ratchet to 'zero tolerance.'

It worked beautifully with cholesterol. Ten years ago, the threshold for statin
intervention was 240, Now, it's 200. Something like 80% of healthy 50 yerar olds are over
200, ergo Lipitor became the biggest blockbuster drug of all time.

Neighborhoods are a simpler concept than social networks. There isn't any nouvelle cuisine
in the inner city; there's lots of fried chicken and McDonalds. It's about upper middle class versus poor.

Addicts are poor because they're weak willed. They lack the moral fiber of quality people.
We can solve their problem by teaching them to be like us.

robert

What do you mean? I saw it in black and white in the newspaper:

"Men who smoke cigarettes throughout their lives will die nearly 18 years earlier than men
who never start, according to a new study of the smoking habits of all adults who lived
and died in Erie, Pa., between 1972 and 1974. "
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-1126451.html

Okay, they said NEARLY 18 years. They were careful to avoid exaggeration.

Those experiments must have been conducted by the tobacco industry. Smoke contains 4,000
CHEMICALS, of which 40 are KNOWN CARCINOGENS. It's inconcievable all that evil doesn't
make animals sick. It's just common sense.


No wonder the experiments failed. Those hampsters were Arabs.


If they urinated less than .05 liters per day, it's obvious we're dealing with some desert
adaptation. Try again with normal animals like dogs and cats.

nightlight

What happened to the </sarcasm> tag at the end of that post.

robert

Here is scientific proof smoke hurts animals:

"Not all veterinarians are aware of the newest research that supports these findings, but
many will be able to identify health problems that they see in their practice from
secondhand smoke. As an instructor and nurse, I have met some smoking-cessation
participants who have come to my class because their pet’s veterinarian told them that
their dog had Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and would die from lack of
oxygen if the owners did not stop smoking. Another participant had a dog with heart
problems that the vet blamed on ETS. Once the owners stop smoking, they often note that
their dog no longer wheezes or gets colds."
http://www.dogonfunny.com/pages/smokingdogs.html