Potential health benefits of smoking tobacco - Part One

Original article here

Smoking is surely detrimental to one’s health, right? People are often bombarded with warnings about the negative effects of smoking and are persuaded to quit by health authorities. It has even got to the point now where people are being deprived of access to healthcare services if they smoke, and this is on the grounds that ‘smoking will delay the onset of healing and may aggravate one’s pre-existing condition’.

According to the World Health Organisation:

“the tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced, killing around 6 million people a year. More than 5 million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while more than 600 000 are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke”

But like any other idea frequently promulgated by the established health authorities, it is wise to question whether there is actually any truth to it. Bear in mind, it is these same authorities which recommend a high PUFA, refined carbohydrate diet (and we have seen how detrimental that has been on the health of the general population). It is also those same people who would recommend treating chronic illness with synthetic pharmaceutical drugs, or complete removal of entire organs (again, clearly not a successful approach). Anyone who pays attention can quite clearly see that the the authorities clearly don’t care about the health of the people, and are more concerned with profits. So it is now time to begin questioning whether tobacco is really ‘all that bad’.

A different perspective:

This article doesn’t aim to analyse each and every study that has been published on the smoking-lung cancer connection, because that is simply not it’s purpose. Quite frankly, there is so much information available on the topic that I would need to write a whole book to include every detail. Fortunately, several books have already dealt with the subject extensively, so for those who would like to conduct some in-depth research into the evidence, I will refer you to Smoke Screens: The Truth About Tobacco by Richard White, In Defense of Smokers by Lauren A. Colby, and The Smoking Scare De-bunked by Dr William T. Whitby.

Instead, I would like to briefly touch upon some of the main issues surrounding the “lung cancer-myth”, and then to progress onto a more in-depth and objective examination of tobacco’s effects on the human body.
In many avenues of daily life, we often hear the line “smoking causes cancer!”. The question is… Does tobacco really cause cancer, or is it simply associated with it?

Orwellian campaigners and anti-smoking fascists would happily have you believe that the smoking-causes-cancer theory is universally accepted among all scientific disciplines. Interestingly enough, it’s not. There have actually been several prominent figures in science who have openly condemned, questioned, and opposed this theory.

Here are a couple of quotes from Whitby’s ‘The Smoking Scare Debunked’(1)

“No ingredient of cigarette smoke has been shown to cause human lung cancer”, and “no-one has been able to produce lung cancer in laboratory animals from smoking.”

–Professor Schrauzer, President of the International Bio-inorganic Chemists

“It is fanciful extrapolation – not factual data.” He also said, “The unscientific way in which the study was made bothers us most. The committee agreed first that smoking causes lung cancer and then they set out to prove it statistically.” (U.S. Congressional Record.)

– Professor M.B. Rosenblatt, New York Medical College

“The belief that smoking is the cause of lung cancer is no longer widely held by scientists”, and “Smoking is no longer seen as a cause of heart disease except by a few zealots.”

– Professor Sheldon Sommers, New York Academy of Medicine and Science

“The natural experiment(referring to a rise in lung cancer when people were unable to smoke)shows conclusively that the hypothesis must be abandoned.”

– Dr. B. Dijkstra, University of Pretoria

“As a scientist I find no persuasive evidence that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer.”

– Dr. Ronald Okun, director of Clinical Pathology, LA

“After years of intensive research no compound in cigarette smoking has been established as a health hazard.”

– Professor Charles H. Hine, University of California

The two main studies at the foundation of the smoking-cancer myth are the ‘Doll and Hill’ study and the ‘Whitehall’ study. To briefly summarise the findings: Doll and Hill found a slightly increased risk of lung cancer in smokers when compared to non-smokers. The results of this particular study were widely publicised and were one of the main drivers behind the whole ‘anti-smoking’ campaign that came shortly afterwards. However, what Doll and Hill failed to publicly mention was that their results actually showed that smokers who inhaled the smoke were at a significantly decreased risk compared to smokers who didn’t inhale . Presumably, this detail was left out because it didn’t support the theory that they were trying to prove. Next up, the results of the Whitehall study went like this: people who gave up smoking showed no improvement in life expectancy, there were also no changes in death caused by heart disease, lung cancer, or other causes. The only exception was that certain types of cancer were more than twice as common in people who gave up smoking. Nevertheless, these inconvenient facts were hidden beneath a load of technical jargon which makes the report difficult to read. It seems that back then, there was an agenda to demonise smoking so the interpretation of the data was twisted in such a way that smoking tobacco would take the blame.

There have been many pieces of research in the past that have identified correlations between smoking and lung cancer. The problem is, researcher bias often comes into play here. Basically, researchers who are aiming to confirm an original hypothesis are more likely to unconsciously misinterpret the data. Since funding is involved in research, there may also be pressure ‘from above’ to present a specific conclusion to the public, even though the results proved to be different. With tobacco research, this is usually the case it seems. The author’s conclusion of the study often bares little or no resemblance to the actual findings.

Instead of data being reported back to the public in its raw form, reports can be skewed and manipulated beforehand to imply causation. It must be understood that there is a stark difference between (1) identifying a correlation between two factors, and (2) identifying the cause of a thing. Its quite simple to identify correlations and associations, for example: There is a significant correlation between basketball players and being tall. Does this mean that playing basket ball causes people to grow taller? Clearly not. Mexican lemon imports are also inversely correlated with highway deaths in the US. Does this mean that importing lemons prevents deaths on the highway? No, of course it doesn’t. It would be ludicrous to suggest otherwise. This is why correlation can never imply causation. Unfortunately however, when it comes to tobacco, this rule apparently does not apply.

For several years now, biased scientists with personal agendas have approached this subject with vested interests in certain outcomes, namely that smoking CAUSES cancer in and of itself. There is also an abundance of evidence suggesting that these same individuals have intentionally misinterpreted data in order to further their own personal goals and aspirations. These twisted interpretations of data have been publicised en-mass by media and public health giants ever since. So despite the increasing number of studies suggesting otherwise, the common belief that smoking causes cancer has become thoroughly ingrained in the minds of almost everyone in society. It is therefore likely that the majority of the scientific community also operate under this faulty assumption, and so the implications are that the quality of scientific research into this area has been, and will be, undoubtedly skewed.

In spite of this, there is some fascinating research that has been published in the past 30 years on tobacco and smoking. Unsurprisingly, these data were not publicly made widely available and the majority of people are completely unaware of the findings. Hence, I have attempted to briefly summarise some pertinent studies below.

First of all, one recent study showed that people with a diet high in GI (glycemic index) foods (such as breads, pastas and rice) were almost 50% more likely to develop lung cancer. Within these results, non-smokers were found to be twice as likely to develop the cancer when compared with smokers. This finding alone could be explained as simply being anomalous, but as we move one through the evidence base you may begin to see how it fits into the bigger picture. It appears from the research that smoking tobacco may actually act as a protective measure against certain external disease-causing agents in some contexts.

There was another study(3) that measured the carcinogenic effects of radon after radioactive uranium ore dust was inhaled by dogs. Paradoxically, unlike the usual fatalities witnessed in other dogs during similar experiments, none of the dogs exposed to tobacco contracted cancer. The author stated “exposure to cigarette smoke was found to have a mitigating effect on radon daughter-induced tumors”. Similarly an experiment(4) on irradiated rats showed that those who smoked and were irradiated showed significantly less inflammation in the lungs than those who did not smoke. In many ways, the smoking group resembled the non-irradiated controls. According to the author “this experimental study further supported the suppressive effect of smoking on radiation-induced pneumo-nitis.”

In human research, one analysis(5) showed that the risk of developing lung cancer from asbestos exposure was “significantly increased in non-smokers in six of the studies [reviewed]”. Another study(6) suggested that the risk of developing lung cancer from asbestos exposure is approximately three times higher in non-smokers than it is in smokers. After breast cancer radiotherapy treatment, smokers have also been observed(7) to display a “significantly decreased inflammatory reaction i.e., reduced levels of mast cells and lymphocytes, compared to both non-smoking controls and patients”.

Are these results simply coincidental, or did smoking erect a protective barrier against radiation damage and asbestos?

Smoking may also protect against other kinds of environmental pollution, such as exhaust fumes. A recent study(8) on miners showed a strong link between diesel engine exhaust fume exposure and lung cancer. The results demonstrated that miners who were heavily exposed have three times the higher risk of dying from lung cancer compared with miners with low exposure. Whereas for non-smokers, the risk was seven times higher.

Tobacco as the CAUSE of lung cancer??????????????????

According to the World Health Organisation(9) “Tobacco use is the single most important risk factor for cancer causing… around 70% of global lung cancer deaths.” Examining the statistics paints a slightly different picture however, and it becomes clear that this statement is simply not true.

Above are statistics provided by the World Economic Forum with data collected showing the countries that smoke the most cigarettes per capita. If smoking is the cause of 70% of all lung cancer cases globally, then it would make sense that the lung cancer statistics match up with the results on this table. For example China, Russia, USA, Indonesia and Japan should theoretically have the highest rates of lung cancer because they have the highest rate of smoking. Except they don’t.

Interestingly, the above lung cancer statistics taken from the World Cancer Research Fund International only feature one of the countries said to have the highest smoking rate, and that’s the USA. If smoking was the predominant cause of lung cancer, this would show in the populations with the highest rates of smoking. Since it does not, it is safe to assume that smoking cannot be the main cause of lung cancer.

More bullshit on "black lungs":

Another common misconception surrounding smoking tobacco is that the smoke in-and-of-itself is capable of turning lung tissue black. This feat is actually physically impossible, however. The lung tissue can only turn black when it is either cancerous or necrotic, or when significant amounts of elemental carbon is inhaled for prolonged periods of time. Where can you find elemental carbon? In coal mines, not in cigarettes. And guess what? Surgeons are unable to tell the difference between smoker’s lungs and non-smokers lungs.

Here are some first hand accounts from professionals working from within the field of medicine(10):

“Smoking does not discolour the lung.” – Dr. Duane Carr, Professor of Surgery at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine

“I have examined thousands of lungs both grossly and microscopically. I cannot tell you from examining a lung whether or not its former host had smoked.” -Dr. Victor Buhler, Pathologist at St. Joseph Hospital in Kansas City

“…it is not possible grossly or microscopically, or in any other way known to me, to distinguish between the lung of a smoker or a nonsmoker. Blackening of lungs is from carbon particles, and smoking tobacco does not introduce carbon particles into the lung.“ – Dr. Sheldon Sommers, Pathologist and Director of Laboratories at Lenox Hill Hospital, New York

Finally, here is a quote from Richard White’s Smoke Screens(11):

“This notion of smoking causing the lungs to turn black can be traced back to 1948. Ernst Wynder, then a first-year medical student in St Louis, was witness to an autopsy of a man who had died of lung cancer and he noted the lungs were blackened. The sight roused his curiousity and he looked into the background of the patient – discovering that there was no obvious exposure to air pollution, but that the deceased had smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for thirty years, he linked the two. Wynder then spent his career ‘proving’ cigarettes caused cancer, although he was forced to admit the data he had compiled was inaccurate (Wynder later published books containing slides of black, cancerous lungs, leading people to assume it was smoking that caused it. He later admitted he was wrong, though.”

End of part one.....