From what Ive read, it could be suprisingly safe to only smoke 6-10 cigarettes a day, depending on how deeply you inhale, and a multitude of other health and environmental factors. Im in outstanding health overall, and Im a 31 year old woman who started smoking about half a pack a day or so since I was around 14 or so, and although I got up to smoking about a pack to a pack and a half a day between age 18 to 27, I started reading more about it and worked hard to cut back to about half a pack a day, which Ive stayed at for the past 4 years.
Although there are some people in my family who've had lung cancer, almost all of them smoked much more than I do, and were surrounded by smoke filled environments, homes, cars, restaruants, bars, cars, etc in a way that just hasnt been allowed in much of the US for the past 10 to 15 years depending on where you live. Also, very few of them were as conscious about keeping their weight down as I am, or most people these days, and cigarettes are a great way to help keep weight off. Im not saying that you should start smoking if you dont already - but its a credible claim to say that routine consumption of fast food burgers, fries and sodas may be responsible for as many illnesses and deaths as smoking. While even NYC has caught on to this fact -what is often overlooked is that smoking can be a fairly effective method of helping people avoid compulsive snacking or overeating; although there are many more effective things out there for sure. And while I will admit that I can often times get winded easily in an areobics class, I do try to go to the gym about two times a week or go for a half-hour brisk walk three or four times a week - and although I may be a bit wheezy when I light up a cigarette afterwards - I promise you Im not the only psuedo-health conscious person who is also a light smoker of only 6-10 cigarettes a day.
Im no phd scientist or anything, but if you really spend some time reading deeply into the methods of many of the cigarette studies, especially the second hand smoke studies and the light smoking studies - and pay particular attention to the criticism of those various studies - you'll be astonished to find that often times certian figures or estimates for the effects of smoking various peroids of time, or various levels of cigarettes - are not at all controled for other health and environmental factors such as relative weight, exercise, other health conditions, and concentration of poor indoor air quality, etc. Moreover, often times when they use a geographically restricted sample size of perhaps only a few thousand people - they tend to have extremely poor filtering for underreporting, which should come as no suprise: most people often exagerate how little they smoke - ESPECIALLY with all of the modern anti-smoking stigma - it isnt cool or acceptable to admit that you smoke two packs a day or even a pack a day anymore, so people chronically underreport their rate of smoking. Most people really smoke one and a half or almost two packs a day will virtually never claim to smoke "2 packs a day" - they will just say they smoke "about a pack a day", take it from me, when I was a heavyish smoker for several years, and hung out around many fellow chain smokers, whenever the topic came up of how much someone smoked - the answer would always be "oh maybe a pack a day". That was even more true with people who sometimes only thought of themselves as "social smokers" yet really were smoking almost a whole pack a day, yet would always claim to be smoking "maybe half a pack a day or less", as if to make themselves feel better about enjoying their smoking, often then adding..."but Im going to quit soon!"
My point in all of that amature psychology is this: certian statistical subjects are often prone to chronic under-reporting, and cigarette smoking is definitely one of them. When 2 pack a day smokers claim to be 1 pack a day smokers when answering medical questions - then studies are based either directly or indirectly off those responses - then you get a skewed set of statistics that make you think that 1 pack a day smoking is really twice as bad as it is - and its already pretty bad in reality. The same becomes even more true with most of the "less than half a pack a day" responders, many of whom are truly 1 pack a day smokers - they give the statistical result of making it seem like smoking 8-10 cigarettes a day will mean that you have a nearly 100% chance of getting lung cancer in your 50s or 60s, which could indeed happen even with less smoking, but still results in dramatically over inflated figures.
So be very wary of the methodology and verification used by studies claiming to focus on light smokers or people only smoking 5-6 cigarettes a day. Im not quite so bold as to say that means its a-ok to light up so smoke if you got em, because while I may very well ascribe to that philosophy myself, I wouldnt advocate it as general policy - I still think that its helpful to point out the short commings in various studies. Even someone who disagrees with 99% of what I might say and things Im a terrible person because I dont equate smoking with mass murder, should at least agree that its a good idea to carefully scrutinize health studies of ANY kind, whether on smoking or any other health concern
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From what Ive read, it could be suprisingly safe to only smoke 6-10 cigarettes a day, depending on how deeply you inhale, and a multitude of other health and environmental factors. Im in outstanding health overall, and Im a 31 year old woman who started smoking about half a pack a day or so since I was around 14 or so, and although I got up to smoking about a pack to a pack and a half a day between age 18 to 27, I started reading more about it and worked hard to cut back to about half a pack a day, which Ive stayed at for the past 4 years.
Although there are some people in my family who've had lung cancer, almost all of them smoked much more than I do, and were surrounded by smoke filled environments, homes, cars, restaruants, bars, cars, etc in a way that just hasnt been allowed in much of the US for the past 10 to 15 years depending on where you live. Also, very few of them were as conscious about keeping their weight down as I am, or most people these days, and cigarettes are a great way to help keep weight off. Im not saying that you should start smoking if you dont already - but its a credible claim to say that routine consumption of fast food burgers, fries and sodas may be responsible for as many illnesses and deaths as smoking. While even NYC has caught on to this fact -what is often overlooked is that smoking can be a fairly effective method of helping people avoid compulsive snacking or overeating; although there are many more effective things out there for sure. And while I will admit that I can often times get winded easily in an areobics class, I do try to go to the gym about two times a week or go for a half-hour brisk walk three or four times a week - and although I may be a bit wheezy when I light up a cigarette afterwards - I promise you Im not the only psuedo-health conscious person who is also a light smoker of only 6-10 cigarettes a day.
Im no phd scientist or anything, but if you really spend some time reading deeply into the methods of many of the cigarette studies, especially the second hand smoke studies and the light smoking studies - and pay particular attention to the criticism of those various studies - you'll be astonished to find that often times certian figures or estimates for the effects of smoking various peroids of time, or various levels of cigarettes - are not at all controled for other health and environmental factors such as relative weight, exercise, other health conditions, and concentration of poor indoor air quality, etc. Moreover, often times when they use a geographically restricted sample size of perhaps only a few thousand people - they tend to have extremely poor filtering for underreporting, which should come as no suprise: most people often exagerate how little they smoke - ESPECIALLY with all of the modern anti-smoking stigma - it isnt cool or acceptable to admit that you smoke two packs a day or even a pack a day anymore, so people chronically underreport their rate of smoking. Most people really smoke one and a half or almost two packs a day will virtually never claim to smoke "2 packs a day" - they will just say they smoke "about a pack a day", take it from me, when I was a heavyish smoker for several years, and hung out around many fellow chain smokers, whenever the topic came up of how much someone smoked - the answer would always be "oh maybe a pack a day". That was even more true with people who sometimes only thought of themselves as "social smokers" yet really were smoking almost a whole pack a day, yet would always claim to be smoking "maybe half a pack a day or less", as if to make themselves feel better about enjoying their smoking, often then adding..."but Im going to quit soon!"
My point in all of that amature psychology is this: certian statistical subjects are often prone to chronic under-reporting, and cigarette smoking is definitely one of them. When 2 pack a day smokers claim to be 1 pack a day smokers when answering medical questions - then studies are based either directly or indirectly off those responses - then you get a skewed set of statistics that make you think that 1 pack a day smoking is really twice as bad as it is - and its already pretty bad in reality. The same becomes even more true with most of the "less than half a pack a day" responders, many of whom are truly 1 pack a day smokers - they give the statistical result of making it seem like smoking 8-10 cigarettes a day will mean that you have a nearly 100% chance of getting lung cancer in your 50s or 60s, which could indeed happen even with less smoking, but still results in dramatically over inflated figures.
So be very wary of the methodology and verification used by studies claiming to focus on light smokers or people only smoking 5-6 cigarettes a day. Im not quite so bold as to say that means its a-ok to light up so smoke if you got em, because while I may very well ascribe to that philosophy myself, I wouldnt advocate it as general policy - I still think that its helpful to point out the short commings in various studies. Even someone who disagrees with 99% of what I might say and things Im a terrible person because I dont equate smoking with mass murder, should at least agree that its a good idea to carefully scrutinize health studies of ANY kind, whether on smoking or any other health concern
March 19, 2011 - 11:50amThis Comment
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