I smoke rather casually. It might be because I simply enjoy the effects, or perhaps because I'm addicted, it's difficult to tell. Also don't think I'm *that guy*, who gets carried away with debunked theories to defend a nasty habit, like smoking is seen as. I'm naturally much more objective than most of the people I hang around- finding the real, undisputed truth about a topic is, for me, very engaging and interesting. I hate being ignorant.
I bring this topic up on the Ray Peat forum, as you guys, more than most, seem to understand that the mainstream understanding of a topic is often dumbed-down, or focusing on the wrong things, or, worst of all, simply fraudulent. For example, justifying no sat. fat./sugar/red meat, based on epi. data that is inevitably confounded by lifestyle and researcher bias. Bad research piles on bad research, very often leading to detection bias. In short, humans as a whole species can get things terribly wrong, and you guys know it.
I've recently been reading Smoke Screens: The Truth About Tobacco. You can purchase this for Kindle pretty cheap. Even if you have little personal vested interest in the topic, I've found the book enlightening in a similar way to a lot of Peats information.
The author does a breakdown of what is actually in a cigarette, in the same way Peat actually explains what is going on when you eat certain foods. A lot of the so-called dangerous chems in cigarette smoke are found in much higher quantities near cars etc. or just from simply living. Smoking cigarettes also seem to have many anti-carcinogenic compounds. Furthermore, coffee has a great deal of chemicals, many known carcinogens, in larger quantities than in cigarettes. This is a more nuanced view than I had previously been exposed to.
He then explains that, from 60 YEARS of research on giving animals cigarette smoke, no link between smoking frequency and cancer of any kind has been found. In fact, even in rats bred to contract cancers of all kinds, the rats live longer than the non-smoking ones, stay leaner and contract common smoking caused cancers (lung cancer), less than the non-smoking ones. I'll repeat. No mechanism for causing cancer has been found in cigarette smoke.
He then looks at the epidemiological studies used to demonstrate the links between smoking and the various cancers. The China Study was used to promote some pretty shitty foods, as the data can be somewhat cherry picked. This has been essentially debunked, mainly by Denise Minger. I just bring this up as an example of the way in which epidemiological information can be highly manipulated, and is no real substitute for hard science. Anyways, in Smoke Screens, the author looks at the various studies, shows what seems like serious faults in the interpretation of the data, in a similar vein to red meat kills etc. In short, lots of detection bias and huge amounts of lifestyle confounding (smokers generally don't care too much about their health/smokers often used the habit as a way to alleviate a lifetime of constant stress, which, as we know, as a killer).
I would also bring up the topic of tribes such as the Kitavans, or the Inuits. They smoke quite a lot, it seems, and have no known incidence of the degenerative conditions associated with smoking. True, they do not have the sophisticated diagnosis understanding modern medicine does, but this still seems rather odd.
I could go into more detail, but I'll leave it there for now. I've very open minded to this topic, and I hope you will be too. At first it seems ridiculous that inhaling combusted plant matter deep into your lungs could be anything but unhealthy. After being exposed to the opposite point of view with regards to this topic I'm starting to waver a little.
This conflict with the mainstream view hurts my brain a lot more than diet did. Very confused.
Edit: found this link, gives you a bit of an idea to what I've been reading
http://www.smokescreens.org/introduction/
I bring this topic up on the Ray Peat forum, as you guys, more than most, seem to understand that the mainstream understanding of a topic is often dumbed-down, or focusing on the wrong things, or, worst of all, simply fraudulent. For example, justifying no sat. fat./sugar/red meat, based on epi. data that is inevitably confounded by lifestyle and researcher bias. Bad research piles on bad research, very often leading to detection bias. In short, humans as a whole species can get things terribly wrong, and you guys know it.
I've recently been reading Smoke Screens: The Truth About Tobacco. You can purchase this for Kindle pretty cheap. Even if you have little personal vested interest in the topic, I've found the book enlightening in a similar way to a lot of Peats information.
The author does a breakdown of what is actually in a cigarette, in the same way Peat actually explains what is going on when you eat certain foods. A lot of the so-called dangerous chems in cigarette smoke are found in much higher quantities near cars etc. or just from simply living. Smoking cigarettes also seem to have many anti-carcinogenic compounds. Furthermore, coffee has a great deal of chemicals, many known carcinogens, in larger quantities than in cigarettes. This is a more nuanced view than I had previously been exposed to.
He then explains that, from 60 YEARS of research on giving animals cigarette smoke, no link between smoking frequency and cancer of any kind has been found. In fact, even in rats bred to contract cancers of all kinds, the rats live longer than the non-smoking ones, stay leaner and contract common smoking caused cancers (lung cancer), less than the non-smoking ones. I'll repeat. No mechanism for causing cancer has been found in cigarette smoke.
He then looks at the epidemiological studies used to demonstrate the links between smoking and the various cancers. The China Study was used to promote some pretty shitty foods, as the data can be somewhat cherry picked. This has been essentially debunked, mainly by Denise Minger. I just bring this up as an example of the way in which epidemiological information can be highly manipulated, and is no real substitute for hard science. Anyways, in Smoke Screens, the author looks at the various studies, shows what seems like serious faults in the interpretation of the data, in a similar vein to red meat kills etc. In short, lots of detection bias and huge amounts of lifestyle confounding (smokers generally don't care too much about their health/smokers often used the habit as a way to alleviate a lifetime of constant stress, which, as we know, as a killer).
I would also bring up the topic of tribes such as the Kitavans, or the Inuits. They smoke quite a lot, it seems, and have no known incidence of the degenerative conditions associated with smoking. True, they do not have the sophisticated diagnosis understanding modern medicine does, but this still seems rather odd.
I could go into more detail, but I'll leave it there for now. I've very open minded to this topic, and I hope you will be too. At first it seems ridiculous that inhaling combusted plant matter deep into your lungs could be anything but unhealthy. After being exposed to the opposite point of view with regards to this topic I'm starting to waver a little.
This conflict with the mainstream view hurts my brain a lot more than diet did. Very confused.
Edit: found this link, gives you a bit of an idea to what I've been reading
http://www.smokescreens.org/introduction/