How To.....Live Long, Live healthy.

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 10:24 am

alleycat wrote:I think there has been more hyperbole about crack. Although it is a serious problem, it's nothing like the smoking epidemic. According to this:
It has been estimated that, in England, 364,000 patients are admitted to NHS hospitals each year due to diseases caused by smoking. This translates into 7,000 hospital admissions per week, or 1,000 day
...
Deaths caused by smoking are five times higher than the 22,833 deaths arising from: traffic accidents (3,439); poisoning and overdose (881); alcoholic liver disease (5,121); other accidental deaths (8,579); murder and manslaughter (513); suicide (4,066); and HIV infection (234) in the UK during 2002. World-wide, almost 5 million die prematurely each year as a result of smoking.

I wouldn't take those numbers without a grain of salt. I have a feeling that studies like these are done in reverse order, they have already decided that smoking is bad, it's just a matter of showing it, so they blame smoking for every disease. Then we get a another study that says alcohol is resposible for the exact same diseases etc... Just like it is hard to prove the deterrence effect on death penalty over life sentence, it's hard to really prove that smoking is the only true cause of these deaths over other causes...

Besides people believe what they want to believe, as long as it's ok for their agenda, there are no inconclusive evidence on the harms of second hand smoking, yet some people still claim it is dangerous, as if it's the truth.

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 10:26 am

About exercise: don't overdo it - the more calories you burn, the more free radicals are generated, so even if on short term you look younger, you'll age worse.

I agree but along came this guy, unbelievable!

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15451442/

Like I told people at work I got tired just reading this.

Another thing that would be nice to way if you knew how the end would turn out for yourself:

An uncle I had loved dessert, he developed Type II diabetes. Well he took his meds and did everything the doctor told him to do except he never stopped eating dessert. He went to sleep one night, and never woke up. The good: he never suffered a lingering death. The bad: he wasn't that old, never saw his kids get married, never met the grandkids.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 10:42 am

Trip@Tobacco is natural, so I'm not as opposed to it as transfats etc. Just for the record.

OK, this "It's natural, so it must be good for you" thing is seriously misguided; there are plenty of things in nature which if consumed by humans can cause sickness or even death, ie rhubarb leaves, potato tubers which have been exposed to sunlight, poison hemlock, deadly nightshade, posion ivy/oak/sumac, various mushrooms, castor beans/ plants, etc etc.

The human digestive and immune system is pretty robust, but any human who goes out and eats just whatever they find growing is playing a particularly dangerous form of Russion roulette.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 10:49 am

there is no conclusive evidence on the harms of second hand smoking, yet some people still claim it is dangerous, as if it's the truth.

Erssa, just because something is difficult to prove doesn't mean the effect isn't there. Can you imagine how difficult it is to isolate just one factor out of the hundreds of thousands of different chemical substances that humans come into contact with every day? Medicine is not like other sciences, it's not possible to put 100 people in a room with second-hand smoke for 50 years and compare them with a control group, so all we can do is look at animal studies, look at lots of medical studies and say, on the balance of probabilities, second-hand smoke is harmful. After all, if smoke is bad for the person doing the smoking, why wouldn't it be bad for other people? The smoke doesn't magically transform into something else once you have exhaled it.

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 11:41 am

Erssa wrote: My advice is to enjoy your life, if you like smoking, go for it. Life is too short to struggle against bad habits.

After watching two grandparents die from Emphysema and another from lung cancer, I couldn't disagree with this more. Life is too short up until you have some fatal ailment, and then suddenly it can't possibly be long enough.

Having seen first hand what terminal lung cancer looks like, trust me: smoking isn't worth it.

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 5:48 pm

jaganath wrote:
there is no conclusive evidence on the harms of second hand smoking, yet some people still claim it is dangerous, as if it's the truth.
Erssa, just because something is difficult to prove doesn't mean the effect isn't there. Can you imagine how difficult it is to isolate just one factor out of the hundreds of thousands of different chemical substances that humans come into contact with every day? Medicine is not like other sciences, it's not possible to put 100 people in a room with second-hand smoke for 50 years and compare them with a control group, so all we can do is look at animal studies, look at lots of medical studies and say, on the balance of probabilities, second-hand smoke is harmful.

I'm not saying that second hand smoking is totally harmless. The question is, if it is harmful enough to be considered dangerous? My opinion is that the risks are so small that they are statistically neglible. It would have been proven conclusively, if there were real solid evidence of it being truly harmful. The biggest harm from being exposed to passive smoking is smelly clothes.

After all, if smoke is bad for the person doing the smoking, why wouldn't it be bad for other people? The smoke doesn't magically transform into something else once you have exhaled it.

Well you know what happens if you duct the exhaust of your car inside your car and go for a ride in the garage. However you can still stand next to your car and not die from the exhausts. I agree that smoking is bad when done directly, but...

Most people (unless exhausted) inhale through their nose. The purpose of nose hair is to filter out the nasty stuff like tar that goes directly to you lungs, when you inhale through a filter. I have read your posts on these forums and I know you are intelligent enough to realize this. Now let's focus on what's dangerous about smoking? Nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide and carcinogens... We all know these are harmful, I'm not denying it. Now I'm the first to admit, I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure one can measure how much carbon monoxide and nicotine ends up in smokers system, it can be done with blood test and urine samples for example. You don't have to be exposed for 50 years to see, that this stuff accumulates to smokers body. Now what about passive smokers, I'm sure the same kind of test can and has been done to people exposed to second hand smoking. Had the test revealed that these negative substances accumulate to smokers body, in big enough amounts to cause harm, it would have been proven by now, besides I haven't heard of anyone getting nicotine addiction from second hand smoking. So what about tar? I'm pretty sure, the miniscule amounts in open air gets stuck to nose hair, at least I know my nose is full of shit after a night in a bar with poor air conditioning, so it has to be working, right? I'm not sure how much can accumulate to someones lungs after exposures of many years, but I doubt, the amounts are pretty insignificant. What about carcinogens? Probably hard to measure from a passive smokers body, but one can use statistics to figure out how many could even be possible victims. I'm sure there are good statistics on lung cancer and the ratio of smokers to non smokers. Smokers are clear winners here as we all know, but what about non smoker compared to passive smokers? Around 1 out of 2000 americans get lung cancer every year, around 85% of these cases are with smokers. So now the percentage of non smokers for getting a lung cancer is what? Around 1 out of 12000? Now start calculating the number for passive smokers out of those non smokers... It's statistically insignificant compared to those who aren't even exposed to passive smoking. My numbers aren't the exact truth, but the real numbers are pretty close.

Our government has just passed a law, that forbids smoking in restaurants and bars. I think it's great, it makes these places much more enjoyable, when your clothes and hair don't smell like shit after a night out. They are also the only places, that I recognize as possibly dangerous when exposure time is long (years). But I really doubt that there are people in the restaurant business, that work on smoky conditions and don't smoke. What I don't like in the "passive smoking gives cancer" theory is that people use it to fight false causes. For example non smokers have tried to ban their neighbours from smoking on ones owns balcony. I firmly believe that people should always take other people in consideration in every situation. Smokers shouldn't smoke, if it clearly exposes others to smoke too much. And non smokers should also take the smokers right into consideration and not always cry, if there isn't really a reason for it.

The reason why I dislike the lies about the dangers of passive smoking, is the cases where non smokers are trying to do stuff like limit ones right to smoke on their own balcony.

Everybody who has inhaled air, has died, I wouldn't still call breathing dangerous

.

Beyonder wrote:
Erssa wrote: My advice is to enjoy your life, if you like smoking, go for it. Life is too short to struggle against bad habits.
After watching two grandparents die from Emphysema and another from lung cancer, I couldn't disagree with this more. Life is too short up until you have some fatal ailment, and then suddenly it can't possibly be long enough.

Having seen first hand what terminal lung cancer looks like, trust me: smoking isn't worth it.

Well I hope your grandparents lived happy lives. The truth is we die eventually no matter how healthy lives we try to live. My old volley ball coach had a heart attack this summer and died, at the age of 45. And he was living as healthy as anyone else. It just proves no matter what you do, you lose. No need to live with a bad concience because of a bad habit.

I'm probably not going to live to be old. 3 of my grandparents were already dead when I was born. The only granny I have is now at a respectable age of 90, but for many years she has been in a condition, that I don't deem worth living. Often in hospital fighting diseases, or then in a retirement hope in bed care, unable to even go to bathroom on her own, sometimes afraid of her own children, because she is sometimes unable to recognice them... Last summer we celebrated her 90th birthday, when we had dinner I felt so sorry for her, when she was trying to eat her napkin instead of the food. My aunts tried to take the napkin away from her, but she got so upset, that they had to give it back to her. I would never want to see me reduced to the point, where my mind has already left my body. Sometimes it's just better to die, while you can still do it with dignity, even if House said: "You can live with dignity. You canÂ´t die with it."

.

alleycat · Post by **alleycat** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 10:19 pm

Erssa, I appreciate your healthy mistrust of statistics, but I doubt that it is some worldwide scam to put the poor tobacco companies out of business. Even allowing for a massive margin of error, the effects of smoking are indisputable. I've had a look at a few other sites from different countries, and a similar pattern emerges. For example, from a government website in my home state of Victoria:

Smoking kills more Victorians every year than road accidents, alcohol and other drugs combined. Deaths due to tobacco use account for 82 per cent of all drug-caused deaths, and around 15 per cent of deaths from all causes.

The other thing about smoking, which I mentioned earlier, is that death is not the only yardstick by which to measure its effects. There are numerous complications arising from smoking which significantly impair quality of living, without actually causing death. Relatively speaking, my symptoms are minor. I rapidly went from feeling perfectly healthy to feeling what I guess an asthmatic feels like. I need to use a medication inhaler every day to stop me from coughing. I need to avoid smoky and dusty environments. Nowadays, I hate being anywhere near someone who is smoking. I suppose it's payback time for all the people whose right to clean air I have violated over the years. It may be difficult to gauge exactly what the results of passive smoking are statistically, but I can definitely feel what it's like. It is certainly not harmless. To put it simply, cigarette smoke contains a variety of gases and particulates of different sizes. The nasal hairs are only able to filter some of the impurities.

My mother and many of my friends still smoke. Some of them are already facing serious health problems but their addiction is so strong that they can't acknowledge them. However I do understand that it is their "choice" and I don't lecture them about it, although I have made them well aware of my health problems resulting from smoking.

While I don't feel any animosity toward smokers as such (I already feel stupid enough for having smoked, why become a hypocrite as well?), I do get angry when people try to trivialise the now well-known dangers of smoking. There's little point in saying that we'll all die someday, or that breathing air causes death. You can provide examples of someone who dropped dead at 45, or even someone who lived to the age of 120 while smoking two packets a day. These are anomalies, not what the vast majority of people experience.

garmpe · Post by **garmpe** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 2:12 am

I promised myself I'd stay out of threads like this after the whole death penalty thing but I couldn't help myself....

Smoking has only 2 problems: butts and second hand smoke.

I watched my father die, my uncle die, my best friends father died because they were so totally cool, and independent, and careful, and all the other wonderful things that smokers are that they killed themselves - I also watch my sister suffer daily from the effects of my fathers smoking while she was in the womb and growing up (not that he lived to see much of it) so I feel I'm allowed to comment.

If you want to smoke, put your butts in a bin. Just b/c it's ok to put it in your mouth doesn't mean I want it in my garden/waterway/street/etc. It's rubish, treat it as such.

If you want to smoke don't do it near anyone who isn't a known smoker. That includes on the streets. I don't care if it kills or not, it stinks and it makes me cough. However, I do believe it kills (it certainly injures - just ask anyone dumb enough to have smoked near me). You have no right to kill someone else (death penalty aside) and even if you don't believe that it kills what gives you the right to take the chance with MY life?

I say go for it. Smoke - please. That way I can spot the independent, cool, careful, bored people more easily.

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 2:27 am

alleycat wrote:Erssa, I appreciate your healthy mistrust of statistics, but I doubt that it is some worldwide scam to put the poor tobacco companies out of business. Even allowing for a massive margin of error, the effects of smoking are indisputable.

I'm not disputing the dangers of smoking. And indeed tobacco is a killer and tobacco related deaths are the "easiest" deaths to prevent. But to me, these numbers indicate that, if a smoker slips on a soap and dies, tobacco is credited for the kill.

While I don't feel any animosity toward smokers as such (I already feel stupid enough for having smoked, why become a hypocrite as well?), I do get angry when people try to trivialise the now well-known dangers of smoking. There's little point in saying that we'll all die someday, or that breathing air causes death. You can provide examples of someone who dropped dead at 45, or even someone who lived to the age of 120 while smoking two packets a day. These are anomalies, not what the vast majority of people experience.

You are right, dangers of tobacco are well-known. You said I mentioned anomalies. It's true, it's rare to live to be 120 and it's rare to die at the age of 45, these are anomalies. Just like getting a serious disease from smoking is an anomaly, since vast majority of smokers will not get a serious disease or die from smoking.

Most of the comments about tobacco in this thread have been like: "Stop smoking while you still can, because if you don't, you will get a horrible disease and die." But the fact is that tobacco doesn't directly kill you. If you are heavy user, you'll have increased risk of getting a serious disease, yet most people who smoke, will never get these serious diseases.

Just like with passive smoking, there are no studies which could show that casual smoking increases the risk of lung cancer. Pretty much all the studies will say, that smoking more then 20 cigarettes a day will increase the risk of lung cancer to 40 or 50 times that of non smoker. Some sources say that passive or casual smokers risk is around 25% higher then non smokers. Not that bad, considering how low the risk is for a non smoker anyway. Low enough to enjoy the casual smokes and live happily and carelessly.

I know, that lung cancer is only one of the diseases associated with smoking, but as it happens to be the weapon in the campaing against smoking, I'm going to use it as an example as well. Lung cancer is responsible for 3% of all deaths in USA. According to some studies a smoker has ~10% chance of getting lung cancer during his life time. Yet everytime I hear somebody warning about the dangers of smoking, it ends up sounding, like smoking is a 100% guarantee for getting lung cancer.

Imo, it's a campaing of fear. The truth is twisted when you never hear the positive stories of people who didn't get diseases. I could make a comparison to Antec NeoHe thread. When you read the thread you could easily think "My god, this must be the crappiest psu in the world", when almost every comment is negative. People have registered to the forums, just to share their bad experience with it. I call this the poll effect. Smoking suffers from the same effect. It's only the bad experiences and negative sides that gets all the attention.

When I'm saying that we all die someday, I really mean it. Rest assured that even, if smoking wouldn't kill people, the average life expectancy wouldn't rise dramatically. Some other illness would take care of people, you would just be trading respiratory diseases to probably some cardiovascular diseases or most likely to Alzheimer's disease, the benefits of tobacco in prevention and treatment of dementia and Alzheimer's are well known. Even currently, Alzheimer's disease kills as much as lung cancer.

I'm truly not trying to trivialise, I'm just trying to keep things in perspective.

My advice to live long and healthy... Don't leave your house. The world is dangerous place, as soon as you leave the safety of your house you are exposed to the deadly rays of sun, which can give you the most common cancer in USA, skin cancer... Where are all the anti-sun people, when you need them

.

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 2:32 am

garmpe wrote:I promised myself I'd stay out of threads like this after the whole death penalty thing but I couldn't help myself....

Smoking has only 2 problems: butts and second hand smoke.

I watched my father die, my uncle die, my best friends father died because they were so totally cool, and independent, and careful, and all the other wonderful things that smokers are that they killed themselves - I also watch my sister suffer daily from the effects of my fathers smoking while she was in the womb and growing up (not that he lived to see much of it) so I feel I'm allowed to comment.

If you want to smoke, put your butts in a bin. Just b/c it's ok to put it in your mouth doesn't mean I want it in my garden/waterway/street/etc. It's rubish, treat it as such.

If you want to smoke don't do it near anyone who isn't a known smoker. That includes on the streets. I don't care if it kills or not, it stinks and it makes me cough. However, I do believe it kills (it certainly injures - just ask anyone dumb enough to have smoked near me). You have no right to kill someone else (death penalty aside) and even if you don't believe that it kills what gives you the right to take the chance with MY life?

I say go for it. Smoke - please. That way I can spot the independent, cool, careful, bored people more easily.

I sense sarcasm

. Gave me a good laugh.

garmpe · Post by **garmpe** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 2:41 am

Have to admit - plenty of sarcasm. I am an ardent anti smoker BUT like with all things, if you want to then I think you should - as long as I don't have to pay for it (or anyone else).

I have to ask though, what exactly are the "positives" you refered to when you said "The truth is twisted when you never hear the positive stories of people who didn't get diseases."

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 2:59 am

I was referring to "avoiding the diseases" as a positive story in itself. Of course I could make up stories of the social benefits of tobacco, how tobacco acts as an icebreaker when meeting new people. In fact, it's how I met my first GF, she actually asked me to give her a smoke eventhough she didn't even smoke at the time...

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 3:21 am

Social benefits of tobbaco, well hear my story: about 22 years ago I was in my last high school year and many of my class mates were smoking.
Since I hated the smell of burnt tobbaco (I still do) but I wanted to look cool I did smoke for about 6 months, not tobbaco but mint in a pipe.
I was hoping to improve my social life, but it didn't really work. Then I found out it was more lucrative to tell girls dirty jokes, no too dirty though.
It worked (I'm not doing it anymore) with girls that weren't so good looking and probably desperate.

alleycat · Post by **alleycat** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 4:43 am

Erssa, I obviously don't agree with most of what you say, as it doesn't match my experiences. Maybe you should take the time to investigate why all those devious health departments are trying to trick you. Also, I do realise there are some minor benefits to smoking. It wasn't just addiction that kept me doing it for 30 years. However the benefits shrink out of sight compared to the costs of smoking... just to keep things in perspective.

Erssa wrote:...most people who smoke, will never get these serious diseases.

You are correct, about 1 in 3 smokers will eventually get a serious disease. Not good odds in my opinion.

Erssa wrote:Don't leave your house.

I was wondering when a comment like this would show up. I can assure you I have lived anything but a sheltered life. Do whatever you like... smoke, drink, live like there's no tomorrow. The older people on this forum are simply pointing out the realities of life, based on first-hand experience. By not taking stupid risks you will have a good chance of living life to the fullest.

nici · Post by **nici** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 7:49 am

Yes, but i really don't like being twenty and thinking what something might do to me in thirty years...

And i doubt any smart people seriously recommend not leaving home.. Most accidents happen at home anyway

To become old and wise, you have to be young and stupid..

Right, i'll go strap myself down in my little padded bunker now.

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 8:58 am

If you start eating healthily and exercising, you'll come to enjoy it. Actually, you get addicted to it in a small way: don't feel right if eating wrong or haven't exercised. I never thought about free radicals being created from exercise, but I wonder if the body doesn't repair itself more quickly or defend itself more robustly when in shape.

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 10:49 am

Erssa wrote:The truth is we die eventually no matter how healthy lives we try to live...It just proves no matter what you do, you lose. No need to live with a bad concience because of a bad habit.

Just because everyone dies, and some people die unpredictably doesn't mean that people should continue with some bad habit. My grandparents died, and it would have happened sooner or later be it from smoking or something else. But that doesn't imply that they wouldn't have been happier:

1. Living longer, and
2. Dying of something that isn't as horrific as lung cancer. Emphysema is no joke either.

I think it's really easy to be carefree about this sort of stuff because it's equally difficult to imagine ourselves in these positions. Sure, it might end poorly regardless, but I'd rather take my chances with some other ailment than lung cancer.

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 4:43 pm

There are worse things than dying from lung cancer......A friend of mine never went more than a few minutes without a cigarette. He developed tongue cancer, and lost most of his tongue. The guy was about 38 at the time. Since then his life has been hell, but he still smokes.

Smart guy......

cAPSLOCK · Post by **cAPSLOCK** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 8:04 am

I hate it when I walk out of the door of my school on a rainy day and get a lungfull of smoke for reasons mentioned above already (makes me cough and smells bad). But there's worse: I cycle in heavy traffic every day, and a 2-stroke scooter/motorbike is worse, or a badly adjusted diesel, or a bus, or just a heavy car (they seem to be in fashion nowadays) trying to get itself moving. On a bad day I can blow my nose, and see that it's black-blue (from burnt oil). [about the nose-hair business: they definately don't stop everything, I can't remember exactly how small, but things somewhere between 50 and 10 microns don't get stopped]

Now when you think of somebody living in the city, or a child walking on the pavement (low-down == more car smoke, less cigarette smoke), what does second-hand smoke look like compared to pollution from motorised transport?

That said, it would be nice if smokers respected non-smokers more by not smoking in restaurants and in places where you can't avoid walking (i.e. doorways). I'm happy to see that Italy (they know their food!) and other european countries have banned smoking in restaurants, and am looking forward to it being banned in Switzerland. It mustn't be taken too far, such as banning smoking in all public places or letting health insurances charge smokers more. It's a free world, right?

PS: if anybody wants to smoke for style, peer-pressure, or whatever [bad] reason, at least smoke the Narguile and not the cigarette, it's not much healtier, but it actually tastes nice, something I can't say for cigarettes (I can only smoke them when I'm drunk

)

Edit: before somebody goes balistic, I mean smoking the likes of apple-tobacco in the narguile, not weed...

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 8:19 am

It mustn't be taken too far, such as banning smoking in all public places or letting health insurances charge smokers more.

Why shouldn't health insurance be more expensive for smokers? They're more likely to make a claim.

cAPSLOCK · Post by **cAPSLOCK** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 8:42 am

Well health insurance is something everybody must have since everybody lives and has a body (unlike car insurance for example), that's why it's obligatory by law in many countries. What's the purpose of an insurance? You need medical insurance because you don't know if a big disease is going to hit you, or an accident, something you cannot afford. The objective of medical insurance is that everybody can afford treatment, whatever happens to them, whatever their income. Some people have better luck than others, some people have better health than others, but health insurance is a way of helping out (or being helped out by) your fellow man, it's the economic equivalent of the two people beside you helping you get up after you've fallen down.

Every person is a free person, everybody has their vices (are you perfect jaganath?), some people go to the doctor for a cold, some people go to McDonalds, and some people smoke. For me health insurance should be government run and is just a simple method of wealth redistribution, and even if it's run by private companies, the government regulates them, and the day the government starts sticking their noses into your habits is a dangerous one: it's called totalitarism.

From a more self-centered, but perhaps more easy to grasp, point of view: today they make smokers pay more, who's next? Motorbikers? Snowboarders? People that enjoy a few pints at the bar from time to time? People that like eating big steaks? Old people? At that rate, you might as well scrap the entire idea of insurance.

klankymen · Post by **klankymen** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 8:51 am

klankymen wrote:interesting anecdote, not saying this is scientific or anything, but it is starting to strike me as an interesting coincidence:

in the last 3 years I can only remember being sick twice (except maybe some runny nose in the winter), and they went as following...

this spring, for the lent i decided to quit alcohol, for no real reason, not because of belief or anything, just for fun. anyway, 2 days later i had a cold, and 2 days after that I had this nasty slime on my tounge and all over the inside of my mouth and no voice, couldnt taste anything, not to mention i probably lost 5kg worth of weight just blowing my nose. anyway i had this for about at least 3 weeks and had my cold for about 3 more. at some point it was easter, and it was spring, and i had vacation, and lent was over, and i went out and partied again, and thought no more of it.

recently, maybe a month ago or so, i decided to quit drinking again, for an indefinite time... so all of a sudden last week i start to get headaches, and feel tired all the time. i wake up one morning with 103Â° fever (39,4) and headaches and no apetite at all. i havent eaten anything in the past 3 days except a half a sleeve of saltine crackers, and my throat is starting to hurt too.

now i'm not neccesarilly writing this to complain, allthough complaining is fun, but i'm more and more starting to think that the alcohol kills the bacteria and keeps me healthy... so here's me considering ending my abstinence, i can do with some dizziness when i get home, as long as it keeps me from puking everything i eat.

so take this as you will, but i might be one of the only people that drinks alcohol to stop him from throwing up

update: now i have scarlet fever!

so the message is: drink alcohol or you WILL get sick!!

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 9:32 am

jaganath wrote:
It mustn't be taken too far, such as banning smoking in all public places or letting health insurances charge smokers more.
Why shouldn't health insurance be more expensive for smokers? They're more likely to make a claim.

I don't like this logic. Old people are also more likely to make a claim, should you charge them more? Or charge fat people more?

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 10:17 am

No one replied to my scientific approach to long living, but I'm not giving up.
Apparently red wine extract resveratrol may increase the life of obese mice, and maybe humans too:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/conditio ... index.html

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 2:49 pm

Bluefront wrote:There are worse things than dying from lung cancer......A friend of mine never went more than a few minutes without a cigarette. He developed tongue cancer, and lost most of his tongue. The guy was about 38 at the time. Since then his life has been hell, but he still smokes.

Smart guy......

lol....it's not too late for this guy to die of lung cancer. Gee, what a great life. No tongue, and then potentially dies a very gruesome death--but it's *totally* worth a smoking habit

.

For what it's worth, my grandfather smoked until his Emphysema was so severe that he was literally incapable of lifting a cigarette to his mouth. I loved my grandfather, but he was either incapable or unwilling to quit, and it definitely cost him.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 4:59 pm

Moderation, and simple risk assessment is the ultimate key.

You can do something that is profoundly unhealthy to a degree without any serious risk, you can smoke 3 ciggarettes per day, drink 1 and a half pints per day, drive your car at 70mph for an hour a day, listen to Britney Spears for 5 seconds per month etc etc.

Everyone seems to need a vice, how dangerous it is for their health should be something that they need to know, and take into serious consideration, but the dullness of not doing things that you enjoy would probabbly kill you anyway, so a bit of excess for a great deal more pleasure seems like a reasonable deal to me.

RE: Smoking, I smoked for about a week when I was 12 (peer pressure), I have smoked weed on about a dozen occasions in the last 15 years, and just refuse point blank whenever anyone asks anymore. I really cant stand second hand smoke anymore either, I am really looking forward to the ban on smoking in pubs summer 2007. Some people might think that I must be getting old, far from it, I decided that the pleasure I got from any form of smoking was outweighed by the fact that I coughed my lungs up for 30 minutes everytime I had a fag/joint, and the risks of smoking are far to high for me to make it a habit, so quitting was the simple solution, especially for the 5 minutes of pleasure vs 30 mins of pain.

Andy

alleycat · Post by **alleycat** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 5:33 pm

cAPSLOCK wrote:It mustn't be taken too far, such as banning smoking in all public places or letting health insurances charge smokers more. It's a free world, right?

What people do in their own homes is totally nobody's business. It's only when their behaviour becomes public that it deserves regulation. It's because it's a free world that we all have the right to a clean environment. The sale and use of tobacco in public should most definitely be illegal. This is where the world's drug policies are back-to-front.

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 3:33 am

Due to the numerous dangerous chemicals present in tobacco products, I feel it should be labeled a "controlled drug", available by prescription only. There are many far less dangerous drugs that are controlled.

Since you can't buy penicillin across the counter, why should tobacco be considered safe enough to be freely sold? The answer is obvious....big tobacco companies are able to defend their business, which is killing people.

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 11:41 am

Bluefront wrote:Due to the numerous dangerous chemicals present in tobacco products, I feel it should be labeled a "controlled drug", available by prescription only. There are many far less dangerous drugs that are controlled.

Since you can't buy penicillin across the counter, why should tobacco be considered safe enough to be freely sold? The answer is obvious....big tobacco companies are able to defend their business, which is killing people.

Nice simplification. Big tobacco companies have no need to defend their business. Smokers are more then willing to stand up for their rights.

limee · Post by **limee** » Fri Nov 03, 2006 12:53 pm

Thanks for the advice Bluefront. I don't do most of those things, except heavy running and the motorcycle thing. Guess I should consider a bike for exercise. Still, most likely a number of us young ones will continue to do rather hazardous things as at this age, we don't really feel our bodies breaking down yet and feel sort of "invincible" so to speak. That and the rush from hormones and what-not is hard to pass at times.