All the studies that purport to show that smoking knocks off XX years of your life are based on correlational, not causal data:
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/12/wh...dence.html
If anybody tries to take me down a notch for smoking cigars and the occasional cigarette, I would just ask them some questions:
- Do you ever drink soda or fruit juice?
- Do you ever eat bread?
- Do you ever eat fast food?
- Do you ever eat non-organic meat?
- Do you ever drink alcohol?
- Do you ever go a week without doing heavy resistance training?
- Do you sit at a desk for more than an hour per day?
- Do you have more than 10% body fat?
- Do you get enough sun?
- Do you supplement with whey protein, fish oil, zinc, alpha-lipoic acid, vitamin D, coconut oil, almond oil, and apple cider vinegar?
- Do you take a carefully planned out cocktail of anti-aging, life extension drugs every day?
- Do you get a physical and full dental cleaning/checkup every six months?
If someone answers yes to all these questions, then they have a leg to stand on, but less than 1% of Americans are healthy enough to criticize someone else for smoking with a straight face.
That said, some people do get seriously addicted. My Dad used to be a non-stop chain smoker, and the addiction was so bad, he couldn't go to movie theaters or sit through a dinner at a restaurant. So, is that from chemical additives in popular cigarettes? A biological susceptibility to nicotine dependence? I don't know. But it's a real risk, worth thinking about.
Hard to be an international playboy when you can't make it through a five-hour flight because you need a smoke.
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/12/wh...dence.html
If anybody tries to take me down a notch for smoking cigars and the occasional cigarette, I would just ask them some questions:
- Do you ever drink soda or fruit juice?
- Do you ever eat bread?
- Do you ever eat fast food?
- Do you ever eat non-organic meat?
- Do you ever drink alcohol?
- Do you ever go a week without doing heavy resistance training?
- Do you sit at a desk for more than an hour per day?
- Do you have more than 10% body fat?
- Do you get enough sun?
- Do you supplement with whey protein, fish oil, zinc, alpha-lipoic acid, vitamin D, coconut oil, almond oil, and apple cider vinegar?
- Do you take a carefully planned out cocktail of anti-aging, life extension drugs every day?
- Do you get a physical and full dental cleaning/checkup every six months?
If someone answers yes to all these questions, then they have a leg to stand on, but less than 1% of Americans are healthy enough to criticize someone else for smoking with a straight face.
That said, some people do get seriously addicted. My Dad used to be a non-stop chain smoker, and the addiction was so bad, he couldn't go to movie theaters or sit through a dinner at a restaurant. So, is that from chemical additives in popular cigarettes? A biological susceptibility to nicotine dependence? I don't know. But it's a real risk, worth thinking about.
Hard to be an international playboy when you can't make it through a five-hour flight because you need a smoke.