(NA) 1 Pack of Cigarettes vs. Lungs

RyanB

RyanB

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A friend of mine on Facebook shared this video and I was pretty amazed. Of course, I'm not intending to cast judgement on those of you who do smoke, but maybe some of you will find this of value. The amount of tar that gets deposited is mind blowing to me.

 
Stochastic effects of cigarette smoking can almost entirely be reversed by quitting. Its the non-stochastic effects you have to worry about. But then, like old Don Rumsfeld said, "then, ...there are the things you just don't know that you don't know." ----Former smoker
 
wilkersk said:
Stochastic effects of cigarette smoking can almost entirely be reversed by quitting. Its the non-stochastic effects you have to worry about. But then, like old Don Rumsfeld said, "then, ...there are the things you just don't know that you don't know." ----Former smoker
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Depends how long one has been smoking for. A casual smoker would have a better chance of recovery, but a lifelong chain smoker has damage that's irreparable. My Great-Grandfather smoked for many years and when he discovered he had emphysema and wanted to quit, the doc told him the damage had already been done.
 
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Ryanb said:
.... My Great-Grandfather smoked for many years and when he discovered he had emphysema and wanted to quit, the doc told him the damage had already been done.
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You got me there. I guess I should have qualified my statement by saying, "below each individual's threshold amount..."
 
My mom smoked when I was little. She quit. Both my folks are still alive. I smoked when I was in the military. Maybe one pack a week at the most. I did it a little after I got out, primarily at bars.

It's been over two years. Haven't touched them, or desired then.
 
Ryanb said:
A friend of mine on Facebook shared this video and I was pretty amazed. Of course, I'm not intending to cast judgement on those of you who do smoke, but maybe some of you will find this of value. The amount of tar that gets deposited is mind blowing to me.

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I did that experiment when I was in the 6th grade for the science fair! Only my machine looked different and I used a paper filter instead of cotton balls. I also obtained (cannot remember how!!) samples of actual human lung taken from cadavers, three samples, a non-smoker, a light smoker, and a heavy smoker. The message really hits home when you see those.
 
Both my parents smoked, and all three of my older sisters, but I never had the desire to (thank God). Probably because my Dad had his first heart attack when I was eight, and a second one that killed him when I was 16. I think that made me never to want to touch a cigarette.

I do have empathy for people trying to quit smoking or any other bad habit, though. My worst bad habit is I bite my fingernails. Badly. Have all my life since I was a kid. I've tried to stop but never been able to. So I can definitely relate to how hard it is to kick a bad habit.
 
Never smoked a single cigarette or any other inhaled substance. Alcohol is the only item I partake in (as far as dangerous substances are concerned). Played too many sports growing up where friends who smoked had trouble keeping up with those of us who didn’t. Grandfather died of complications (cancer) from a lifetime of smoking when I was 12 or so. Those were good enough reasons not to start. I was lucky enough not to grow up in a home with cigarettes or much alcohol as well.


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The truth is far, far worse than the video. Your lungs are divided into tiny little sacs called alveoli (based on the Latin word alveolus, which was a little sac Romans used to carry their stash). Tiny little sacs have more surface area than big ones, and you need surface area to absorb oxygen.

Your lungs react to smoke as an irritant (who'd a thunk?). Irritation causes an inflammatory response, and the first thing to respond to an inflammation are macrophages. Pulmonary macrophages produce an enzyme called elastase. It breaks down the walls of those alveoli, which are made from elastic fibers. The macrophages make little sacs into big ones. Little efficient sacs into big inefficient ones. In an emphysemic patient the lungs have become so inefficient that they can no longer absorb enough oxygen from the air.

This process happens every time you smoke a cigarette and is completely irreversible. if you stop smoking lots of things will be better quickly, but your pulmonary capacity never recovers, ever.

The dumbest thing you can do with your money is purchase and smoke cigarettes. You're better off burning it, fire gives light and heat and doesn't slowly poison you to death. All this said I doubt anyone reading this smokes. Cigarette use it largely confined to the poor, who can ill afford it or its health affects. Nicotine may be the most addictive drug known, fewer people quit smoking than quit heroin. Most lung cancer victims go back to smoking.
 
steingar said:
You're better off burning it, fire gives light and heat and doesn't slowly poison you to death.
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Unless you live in a shack in a third world country and cook and heat your shack with an open fire.

But that's a minor nit, your post is spot on! My Dad lost his leg to smoking (Buerger's Disease) and eventually his life (mouth cancer, aspirating blood post op, death from the resulting pneumonia.)
 
I dipped through part of highschool and through much of college. Horrible habit. Quit cold turkey using killthecan.org and never looked back. I have a few friends who smoke...such a nasty habit.
 
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SoonerAviator said:
Played too many sports growing up where friends who smoked had trouble keeping up with those of us who didn’t.
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Yeah I fell for that line too, and glad I did. Never smoked in my entire life, but man, my parents were like chimneys, one after the other. Fortunately I left home at 18 to go in the Air Force so I was able to get away from that.
 
A friend of mine is married to a smoker, like overflowing ashes in her ash tray and distrusting kind. I don't know how he puts up with it because he doesn't smoke at all. He won't even driver her car when his is broke, because of the smell in hers.
 
The thing is, anyone can rationalize the cancer. Oh, it may not happen to me, or if it does it'll be later. But your lungs get worse with each and every cigarette, and it is completely irreversible.

The single best thing you can do for your health is quit smoking. If you smoke, stop right away. If you know someone who smokes get them to stop. In the halls of Steinholme is anyone is found smoking they are assumed to be on fire and treated appropriately.
 
I've never had the desire. Also don't drink much, maybe two beer a year. I probably damage myself more with food than anything else.
 
Serious question here. Something I've wondered about for quite a while. I have a side business where I do a lot of mowing. The mowers stir up a LOT of herbal debris. If you did the cotton ball test on the grass, weed and dust that I ingest on any given day I'm sure it would be much, much worse than the video above. Am I doing permanent damage to my lungs?
 
steingar said:
The dumbest thing you can do with your money is purchase and smoke cigarettes. You're better off burning it, fire gives light and heat and doesn't slowly poison you to death. All this said I doubt anyone reading this smokes. Cigarette use it largely confined to the poor, who can ill afford it or its health affects. Nicotine may be the most addictive drug known, fewer people quit smoking than quit heroin. Most lung cancer victims go back to smoking.
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Agree on all points, well stated.

It’s an interesting perspective that one can now look at the US population and say that smoking is (now) largely confined to the poor. That certainly was not the case 50 years ago even though the dangers were known. Of course those dangers were suppressed by the industry until the public became more aware and convinced of the scientific evidence. That turned into enough political pressure to overcome industry lobbying and produce anti-smoking propaganda and regulation.

This demo also provides plenty of space for the industry and public to justify vaping. Do the same biological effects apply to vaping and do they apply to the same extent? I don’t have a clue though I suspect that there is plenty of science available.

Regarding nicotine; yes it is extremely addictive but it can be delivered by other means than smoking or vaping. Is nicotine itself anywhere near as damaging as smoking tobacco is to your lungs, or chewing tobacco is to your mouth and throat? I must admit again, I don’t have a clue.


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Gerhardt said:
Serious question here. Something I've wondered about for quite a while. I have a side business where I do a lot of mowing. The mowers stir up a LOT of herbal debris. If you did the cotton ball test on the grass, weed and dust that I ingest on any given day I'm sure it would be much, much worse than the video above. Am I doing permanent damage to my lungs?
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The difference is that cigarette smoke contains thousands of toxins and by-products that are toxic to the body. The cillia and mucus that lines your bronchial tubes help catch any foreign debris that you breathe and then balls it self up in the mucus where you can then cough it up and out. The act of smoking damages this function over time. Any debris that’s stirred up from mowing the lawn can easily be prevented from being ingested by wearing a mask or something of that sort.

Others may be able to help clarify, but that’s the research that I’ve been able to come up with as I have had the same question before. I always wear a mask when I mow the lawn for this reason.
 
Ryanb said:
Any debris that’s stirred up from mowing the lawn can easily be prevented from being ingested by wearing a mask or something of that sort.
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I could probably get through one lawn with a mask. But not 15 or so a day in 100 degree temps. Otherwise I'd have been wearing one for years.
 
Bill Watson said:
Regarding nicotine; yes it is extremely addictive but it can be delivered by other means than smoking or vaping. Is nicotine itself anywhere near as damaging as smoking tobacco is to your lungs, or chewing tobacco is to your mouth and throat? I must admit again, I don’t have a clue.
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The long term health costs of vaping are not as yet apparent, since the phenomenon only started in the more recent past. Vaping to quit smoking is a very good idea, the vapor from the E-cigarettes can't possibly be a bad for you as tobacco because it isn't a burning vapor and doesn't contain the farrago of plant ignition products that cigarettes do. That said, I've read that vaping has become a thing in and of itself. It, and the rise of hookahs concerns me deeply. Hookahs are I suspect worse than cigarettes, which at least have filters. Hookahs are of course equally addictive. Any addiction to nicotine is a bad thing, no one needs that albatross around their neck.
 
I quit smoking by using smokeless tobacco. It was a snap. Then it came time to quit the smokeless tobacco. It was a *****. After two plus decades, I don't really miss either...much...after a meal. Once addicted, always addicted even after you quit.
 
steingar said:
The long term health costs of vaping are not as yet apparent, since the phenomenon only started in the more recent past. Vaping to quit smoking is a very good idea, the vapor from the E-cigarettes can't possibly be a bad for you as tobacco because it isn't a burning vapor and doesn't contain the farrago of plant ignition products that cigarettes do. That said, I've read that vaping has become a thing in and of itself. It, and the rise of hookahs concerns me deeply. Hookahs are I suspect worse than cigarettes, which at least have filters. Hookahs are of course equally addictive. Any addiction to nicotine is a bad thing, no one needs that albatross around their neck.
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I understand that vaping nicotine is as addictive as smoking though I’m not sure who would fund research focused on the subject. I hate to think that the only way predict the long term health effects of vaping requires a generation of use and mortality. We can do better than that. Of course research on that subject suffers from the same ‘who would fund it’ problem. It seems that our collective interest in public health issues seems to be at a low, at least in my lifetime.

The little I know of hookah smoking suggests that they may be less harmful than cigarettes. First, the tobacco is not ignited but heated by coals and as a result has a much milder taste compared to lit tobacco. Second, the smoke is filtered through water, water which ends up heavily contaminated just as the cotton and tubing in the OP.

Ferrago! I look up word definitions daily but rarely have to look up a word I’ve never seen before. Well done


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N3368K said:
I quit smoking by using smokeless tobacco. It was a snap. Then it came time to quit the smokeless tobacco. It was a *****. After two plus decades, I don't really miss either...much...after a meal. Once addicted, always addicted even after you quit.
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I did smokeless starting at about 12 until I was 32. I was in the doctors office when he asked me if I smoked. No, but I do chewing tobacco. He said it is time to quit. He didn't see any problems in my mouth, he just told me I needed to quit. I pulled it out of my pocket and threw it away. Never touched it again, never missed it.
 
I used chewing tobacco as a kid before I smoked. It was the Skoal/Copenhagen snuff which was hard to quit for me.
 
I picked up a cigar habit for 20 years or so. It’s hard to imagine now that I smoked them in the office, but I was not alone.

Cigars are different, you don’t inhale! Until you do, then you do it more deeply. It tapered down to one or two a week. Then they started making me sick and I stopped.

Bought two a couple of months ago, smoked one, felt like hell, the other is moldering in a case.


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Bill Watson said:
I understand that vaping nicotine is as addictive as smoking though I’m not sure who would fund research focused on the subject. I hate to think that the only way predict the long term health effects of vaping requires a generation of use and mortality. We can do better than that. Of course research on that subject suffers from the same ‘who would fund it’ problem. It seems that our collective interest in public health issues seems to be at a low, at least in my lifetime.
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A priori I would say vaping has no adverse health effects, since it is just steam and some aromatics. But I know better. And I've never heard of long-term pulmonary nicotine application. We really don't know what part of tobacco toxicity is due to nicotine itself, at least not that I know of. Given that talcum powder is now a suspected carcinogen, I don't tend to rule things out.

Bill Watson said:
The little I know of hookah smoking suggests that they may be less harmful than cigarettes. First, the tobacco is not ignited but heated by coals and as a result has a much milder taste compared to lit tobacco. Second, the smoke is filtered through water, water which ends up heavily contaminated just as the cotton and tubing in the OP.
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Ignition is ignition, doesn't matter how you get there. Most of the things that do a number on the lungs and cause cancer are hydrophobic molecules, i.e. they're oily. They wouldn't be expected to dissolve (i.e. be filtered) by water. The filters in cigarettes do actually get some of that, just not much.
 
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I smoked a pack and a half a day for 25 years. Tried to quit countless times and failed. Then I bought my first airplane and I made a no BS promise to myself that, if I smoked even ONE MORE grit, then I'd sell my new toy. That's what it finally took to get me to quit. Most addictive freekin' thing I've ever done. That was July 20, 2002.

A week or so after I quit I was having a particularly hard time with it so I made this for my desk (I was at FedEx at the time):

9EED5C8C-8886-442F-8A44-DBBDC12AE35C.jpeg
 
timwinters said:
I smoked a pack and a half a day for 25 years. Tried to quit countless times and failed. Then I bought my first airplane and I made a no BS promise to myself that, if I smoked even ONE MORE grit, then I'd sell my new toy. That's what it finally took to get me to quit. Most addictive freekin' thing I've ever done. That was July 20, 2002.

A week or so after I quit I was having a particularly hard time with it so I made this for my desk (I was at FedEx at the time):

View attachment 64908
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Good deal, Tim.
 
In the video he is using the vacuum chamber to completely filter the smoke through the cotton balls. While smoking a typical cigarette an individual inhales and exhales the smoke intermittently only absorbing/depositing a fraction of the smoke within the lungs. I never smoked cigarettes but will enjoy three to six cigars a year.
 
My father spent most of his life smoking and trying to quit multiple times. He finally gave it up when staying in a non-smoking room in Hartford CT and spending the evening hanging out the window in a blizzard smoking. He decided right there that things had gone far enough. Never smoked again.
 
Smoking takes a toll.

My Father died of some combination of lung and liver cancer. He was a life long smoker and drinker.

I’m flying tomorrow to check in with my Mother who has COPD and is on oxygen 24/7. She quit smoking some years ago and is 91 now. Her quality of life could be better but most of her friends have passed and she still lives independently so regrets are few.

My best flying and fishing buddy has degenerative lung disease from smoking. It’s understood that it will eventually kill him. I’ll always remember bunking with him in a Montana fishing lodge and being awakened by his need to have a 3:00 am smoke. Nicotine Addiction is rough. I am having fun traveling with him to bucket list fishing destinations but it’s getting to the point where he doesn’t have enough wind to cast a fly let alone fight a 100lb Tarpon. I thought we lost him when he got stuck knee deep in a Bahamas Bonefish flat and started hyperventilating but we made it out to fish another day.

It’s ironic that no one went to jail for pushing a known addictive carcinogen on the public for years but an ErIc Garner was killed by the NYPD for selling untaxed cigarettes on a street corner. No one is going to jail from big pharma for pushing OxyContin but thousands are incarcerated for fooling with weed. I need to go reread some Foucault or something.


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jkaduk said:
non-smokers have to pick up cigarette butts on detail.
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I refused to pick up butts when on detail and I never picked one up either the whole 8 years of military service. Never had anyone say anything to me about it. It wasn't my habit so I wasn't cleaning up after them.

My dad smoked and drank and was skinny as a rail and dropped dead of a heart attack while he was only 45 and I was 8. I have never smoked and never cared too, I dont drink either. Maybe it was seeing how my dad lived I dont know.
 
Reformed (chain) smoker here. Attitudes about smoking were a lot different 40-50 years ago, when I was a kid, and growing up in a smoking household (is there a pun there? Not really) no one batted an eye when I picked up the habit. My friends also smoked. Just about every adult I knew smoked. We even had a tobacco barn on the family farm! I wanted, even tried to quit for many years before I actually did, but nicotine addiction is a *****. Every now and then I catch a whiff of cigarette smoke and feel a pang of desire, but I can resist the temptation. I haven't smoked in 30 years.
 
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