Smoking your way to cancer

arun057 · New User Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 1

Cancer

The risk of dying from lung cancer is more than 22 times higher among men who smoke cigarettes, and about 12 times higher among women who smoke cigarettes compared with never smokers.4

Cigarette smoking increases the risk for many types of cancer, including cancers of the lip, oral cavity, and pharynx; esophagus; pancreas; larynx (voice box); lung; uterine cervix; urinary bladder; and kidney.5

Rates of cancers related to cigarette smoking vary widely among members of racial/ethnic groups, but are generally highest in African-American men.6

pl visit this website for more info
http://www.clipandquit.com/

Nine · New User Joined: 31 May 2006 Posts: 8

Unfortunaly my mum is a smoker and it hard to "avoid" her smoke. She smokes in the car and there are ashtrays everywhere in our house. And here in Germany you are allowed to smoke almost everywhere Rolling Eyes

. But they are thinking about changing that, which is a good thing!

mikes · Senior User Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 143

In these claims, what is the definition of a smoker? None of these claims or studies ever mentions this very key elemental information. A real, authentic scientific study would lay this out clearly so as to lend credibility to the claims being made.

Why is it that the countries of the world with the highest smoking rates have the lowest rates of lung cancer, while those with the losest smoking rates have the highest lung cancer rates?

Why is it that the smoking rate in the US has gone from 53% 40 years ago to about 21% today, and the lung cancer rate continues to increase?

Consider just for a moment that smoking is not the cause of lung cancer. If this is true, consider all of the money, time, and effort spent blaming tobacco that could have been spent in acually finding the cause and cure of this disease.

In any endeavor, distractions are the enemy of achieving positive results. That is why the outlook for a person with Stage IV NSCLC has not improved in 40 years despite the expenditure of billions of dollars and millions of people quitting smoking.

These claims have been made for over 40 years, the public has responded by cutting back more than 150% and yet the cancer rate continues to climb.

If smoking were the cause, cancer rates would be way down.

isidella · Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2006 10:25 am Post subject: Re: Smoking your way to cancer

The reason why lung cancer rates continue to climb, yet smoking rates are falling is because lung cancer can have a latency period of many years.

You cannot argue witht he fact that smoking a single ciggie can cause coronary arteries to constrict by 12%. If you are already 75% occluded by plaque, you put your self at risk of a major cardiovascular event, AKA a heart attack.

Smoking is bad. This is not the place to defend it. Go to a pro-smoking board of you want to spread disinformation.

mikes · Senior User Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 143

My purpose is not to encourage or defend smoking, but rather to encourage research into the real cause(s) of cancer.

How long a latency period is there? Smoking peaked out 40 years ago. Is the period more than 40 years.

Do you you always tell people to go somewhere else when they disagree with you?

There has been improvement in the prognosis and treatment of several types of cancers in the last 40 years while lung cancer has not seen improvement.

Many people who never smoked or lived around smoke continue to contract this disease.

My question in the previous post is what defines a smoker. I notice you did not give your definition.

The person who started this thread was here in the forum to make a free advertisment for his commercial web site, and has not posted since.

isidella · Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2006 2:07 pm Post subject: Re: Smoking your way to cancer

The medical literature shows that lung cancer can occur in non-smokers (never smoker defined as less than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime). Current reserach is showing that these people have certain genetic polymorphisms that predispose them to many types of cancer, including lung cancer. HIV and it's subsequent effects on the immune system have also been linked to increased incidence of lung and other cancers. So yes, there are multiple causal factors.

It is clear however that smoking cigarettes daily can contribute to the development of lung cancer. Just read the scientific literature. Much of it can be interpreted by the layperson armed with a simple medical dictionary. A search of "lung cancer tobacco" on www.pubmed.com will result in the retrieval of thousands of peer reviewed scientific publications. The majority of them fully support that smoking and lung cancer have a positive correlation. Many key articles show that cigarette smoking is causal of lung cancer. Sure, there are other environmental chemicals and gene polymorphisms that may be contributing and yes, much research is needed to fully understand the extent of their contribution to carcinogenisis.

BUT. . . For scientists to backtrack and re-research something that is already known is lunacy. Smoking is the biggest risk factor for small cell and non-small cell lung cancer (not for bronchioalveolar carcinoma however and this type of cancer is quite rare)

I am a thrid year medical student and I have done lung cancer research since 2001. I would be happy to forward my peer-reviewed publications to you. Most of it is about micrometastasis and gene upregulation in established tumors, but I have been reading the literature for years and I have the education to understand and interpret most of what I read. I am not an authority, but I feel like I can speak with the public interest in mind.

There are many people on this board who have lung cancer, who may think they have lung cancer or who have relatives with lung cancer. Regardless of smoking status, they deserve the truth. I am merely serving to remind anyone who reads the previous posts that you are posting your opinion, mikes.

Your words could very easily make an addicted smoker think, "Hmm, maybe smoking doesn't cause lung cancer." It could be the next cigarette that they light up that causes the cascade of carcinogenesis. The carcinogen inhaled into the lung is taken up by the epithelial cell. The chemical leads to a crosslinking or strandbreak in one particular piece of DNA that serves as the cell cycle control. That cell begins to devide rapidly and form a tumor. The cells in the center of the tumor die because of oxygen hunger and they release angiogeneic factors that cause blood vessels to grow towards the tumor. Now that the tumor has its own blood supply, it can grow larger, break though the basement membrane of the lungs and invade other blood vessels. It is at this point that the victim coughs up a bit of blood or rust colored sputum. They are feeling some pain or uneasiness. Maybe they go to the doctor, or maybe they ignore it. The tumor continues to grow and a few cells invade the bloodstream and seed the liver, the bones, the brain. Now the body has dozens of new tumors that are burdening the vital organs. The organs cannot perform their vital functions because they are being starved by the metabolic needs of the hungry tumor. Despite surgery, radiation, and chemo, the aggressive tumor cannot be cured. The patient eventually dies. All because of that one cigarette that supposedly doesn't cause cancer.

From my perspective, the cause of many cancers are known. Many are preventable. Some people want to smoke. Some people live in a house filled with radon. Some people work with carcinogenic substances daily and sometimes spill it on themselves (me, me, me). Many people have to work in cadmium mines to make a living. Many people like to swim in chlorinated water. Many people like to ride in cars and must breathe in polluted city air. Mnay people eat meat that has been fed super doses of hormones. Cancer happens. I think it will always happen.

As a scientist, I fully recognize that we need to develop better treatments for cancer. We need less toxic, biologicals that can truly kill the tumor cells that lurk in dark corners that cause metastasis. We need better second line chemos so that patients have options other than hospice. We need to put our time, money and effort into better therapeutics.

We need to teach our children that sucking on a cigarette butt never did anything good for anyone except a tobacco executive. Tobacco farmers can make more money planting other crops.

Okay, a lot of that had nothing to do with you mikes, I just had to get it off my chest.

A little more info:

Jpn J Clin Oncol. 2006 May;36(5):309-24. Epub 2006 May 30. Related Articles, Links

Tobacco smoking and lung cancer risk: an evaluation based on a systematic review of epidemiological evidence among the Japanese population.
Wakai K, Inoue M, Mizoue T, Tanaka K, Tsuji I, Nagata C, Tsugane S.
Division of Epidemiology and Prevention, Aichi Cancer Center Research Institute, Nagoya, 1-1 Kanokoden, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8681, Japan. Tel: +81 052-764-2988; Fax: +81 052-763-5233; wakai@aichi-cc.jp.
BACKGROUND: Although tobacco smoking is the best established risk factor for lung cancer, the association is not as strong among Japanese as among Western populations. It would be of value, therefore, to quantify that association in Japan based on a systematic review of epidemiological evidence for the primary prevention of lung cancer. METHODS: Original data were obtained from MEDLINE searches using PubMed, supplemented with manual searches. The evaluation of associations was based on the strength of evidence and the magnitude of the association, together with biological plausibility as previously evaluated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. A meta-analysis was also conducted to estimate the summary measure of those associations. RESULTS: A total of 8 cohort studies and 14 case-control studies were identified, almost all of which consistently showed a strong association of current smoking with the risk of lung cancer. The summary relative risk for current smokers versus never smokers was estimated as 4.39 (95% confidence interval 3.92-4.92) for men and 2.79 (95% confidence interval 2.44-3.20) for women. Cohort studies and case-control studies gave reasonably consistent summary measures. The summary relative risks were 11.7 and 2.30 for squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma, respectively, in men, and were 11.3 and 1.37 correspondingly in women. CONCLUSION: There is convincing evidence that tobacco smoking strongly increases the risk of lung cancer in the Japanese population, with the relative risk for current smokers compared with never smokers measuring around 4.4 for men and 2.8 for women.

isidella · Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2006 2:13 pm Post subject: Re: Smoking your way to cancer

BTW

When I say we need to develop better therapeutics, I mean ME. That is what I am doing with the rest of my life and I really hope that it helps. But with the FDA red tape and drug companies hunger for money, the work that I do in my little lab may never make it to you. I am very sorry for that.

Maybe that is why, mikes, the prognosis for stage 4 NSCLC has not improved in the last 40 years (for the most part, it has improved just a little bit though. . .)

Frustrating.

mikes · Senior User Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 143

isadella,

Thank you for your thoughtfull reply.

First, as a medical student, you are likely aware of scientific methods as well as the study of correlation vs causality. Correlation can be a useful tool in determing causality and at the same time can give misleading or coincidental results. This subject is a science within itself and was pioneered by Aristotle and others.

Any case made by anyone on any subject is almost always supported by correlations. This includes me and you and others.

Your reply concerning how many cigarettes a day defines a smoker matches some of the research I have done on the subject. Another number given is 2 packs (20 to a pack). I think (but cannot prove) that either of these definitions will encompass over 80% of the population. The more realistic number is about 21%. As you can see, if the definition of a smoker is defined too low, then virtually everyone is a smoker. This being the case, it is not surprising that we see the claim that 87% of those getting lung cancer are smokers.

Another observation that you as a medical student are bound to have encountered in the history of medicine and various diseases over time is that when man can determine the cause of a disease, a cure for dealing with this disease shortly follows. This has been the pattern for hundreds of years.

Another way to put this is that when the actual cause(s) of lung cancer is discovered, the cure will quickly follow.

There have been important, but little puplicised studes in the US (EPA) and UK showing a much better case for diesel being a real contributor to lung cancer, but you will never see this in the news. Other candidates include Atrazene and certain food products.

My whole point is in no way intended to encourage smoking, but rather to find causes that will actually correlate to a cure.

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