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Cell Division Reversed for the First Time
SubtleGuest writes "Gary J. Gorbsky, Ph.D., a scientist with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, has found a way to reverse the process of cell division.
The discovery could have important implications for the treatment of cancer, birth defects and numerous other diseases and disorders. Gorbsky's findings appear in the April 13 issue of the journal Nature.
"No one has gotten the cell cycle to go backwards before now," said Gorbsky. "This shows that certain events in the cell cycle that have long been assumed irreversible may, in fact, be reversible."
In the lab, Gorbsky and his OMRF colleagues were able to control the protein responsible for the division process, interrupt and reverse the event, sending duplicate chromosomes back to the center of the original cell, an event once thought impossible.
Here is a video of it happening."
first dna and proteins... and then we can reverse time!
And here is the video of cell division. only its played in reverse.
WhatsAPro.com
Mark
I'm wondering if with unlimited resourses, the process could be performed enough times to revert the cell to a stem cell. Just a thought.
It might not be too late to 'take back' that decision you made to have children 10 years ago?
A fate worse than death faces the one subjected to this - prebirth!
Kiss old age good-bye.
... and we are loosing that war. i've heard many times, and have even caught myself saying, that there will be a cure for cancer soon. hasn't happened yet. so whenever i hear:
important implications for the treatment of cancer
i get my hopes up for a little while, just as most of the world has since the War on Cancer was officially announced in the 50's, and untold amounts of money have been spent by the NIH. but the truth is, i probably need to quit smoking to have the best chance at not dying from cancer.
-- sorry, my uncle just died from lymphoma this weekend, and i keep staring at the cigarette i'm smoking with a pained look.
i disable sigs
There is no 'cure' for cancer because it is not one disease, but many. Most so-called 'cures' for cancer are actually new treatments that generally target a specific form of cancer. Some of them are very successful, and the recovery rate is always increasing, but at the same time we expose ourselves to more and more chemicals and unhhealthy foods that can lead to cancer. I doubt there will ever be a cancer cure-all, but your chances of survival - and recovery - are much higher than fifty years ago.
And yes, you should quit smoking. Right now.
This sig is covered under the GPL.
There must be a Cell processor story somewhere that Slashdot could post. That would make it three cell stories in a row. It's funny becuase it's repeated.
/wait... this isn't fark. //my bad.
for a minute there, i lost myself...
In Canada (I'm sure the USA is similar), the overall cancer rate is now 1 in 2 ... that's right 50% of the population will contract cancer at some point in their life (most of those will eventually die from it).
... it has nothing to do with the tens of thousands of kilograms of carcinogens dumped into the environment or otherwise thrust upon us ... usually for econonmic reasons. I guess it has reach a point where we are counting the number of times each person gets cancer per decade, before it is worth checking out that "ounce of prevention" thing.
Here's the real shocker. The Government response can be pretty much summed up as "Don't worry, be happy"
I've always assumed that most smokers are people with untreated ADHD. Has anyone read anything to indicate whether or not this is the case?
The positive effects of smoking (feeling calmed down and more focused) are the same effects of ADHD medication except, obviously, the medication won't cause cancer, it is given in a dose that is consistent through the entire day, and it is not addictive.
I'd be curious to find out if giving a smoker medication for ADHD would make it easier for them to quit.
Cow Cube
If this is for real, all I can say is
Holy shit!
It would be theoretically possible to create a certain protein which targets cell-specific division. Like cancer cells. It wouldn't eradicate the cancerous cells, but it would certainly slow or possibly stop the cells' replication.
Of course, I imagine the devil's in the details...
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
I'm quite curious, could someone explain what sort of technology is used to observe chemical reactions at such a small level? (such as that in the video)
In Canada (I'm sure the USA is similar), the overall cancer rate is now 1 in 2 ... that's right 50% of the population will contract cancer at some point in their life (most of those will eventually die from it). Here's the real shocker. The Government response... (snip rant about carcinogens)
You're the victim of a very fundamental misunderstanding. The overall cancer death rate is actually 1 in 1. If you live long enough, you will eventually die of cancer. It's a perfectly-normal consequence of telomere loss due to aging.
As we get better at preventing and treating heart disease and other vascular problems like stroke, it's only reasonable to expect cancer death rates to rise. It is not reasonable to start leaping to wild-assed conclusions about carcinogens, cell phones, and conspiracies. None of those are the problem. The problem is that most of the low-hanging fruit in the health-care business has been picked, and only the hard problems like cancer (which, as others have noted, refers to a great variety of different diseases) remain.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
It'll be either "playing god" or ending the life of some mass of atoms destined to become Christian.
So one cell gets split and then they merge back together again and again?
Just like Eminem and Kim?
i'm sorry y'all, when i try and quit, i go crazy, i can't think or see straight, and every other thought is "i need a cig". i gave up the harder stuff years ago, but i cna't kick the fucking tobacco.
maybe i'll try and justify it by saying "oh look, the Doctors can sprinkle some of that magic cell-division-reversal-dust on my lungs, and fix all me problems".
Well, at least it gives hope to those of us who've never smoked, don't go out in the sun without massive sunscreen, and still get cancer at age 21.
dude, u have to make a choice whether you're life is worth saving or not. we all die one day but you have to believe that life is worth it enough to quit smoking .. even if you quit and go back, quit and go back, eventually you'll just quit for good .. it doesn't take an iron will it just takes persistence and believing in that your life will be worth living! :)
"Good news everyone! I just figured out..."
"a scientist with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, has found a way to reverse the process of cell division."
Eeewww!! Grosss!!
Anybody else also reminded of those "see me eat my hamburger in reverse" videos?
As someone who quit smoking two years ago, let me tell you the easiest way to do it: just do it! It's that simple. There are things that will help, but the core of it is to simply stop.
I woke up one day and said "I'm going to quit next monday." I spent that week tapering off somewhat, and used the patch when I quit. I don't know how much of an effect the tapering and patch had, but they were isignificant compared to the effect of simply quitting.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
It's easy to lower the cancer death rate; make sure people die of something else first!
Males will all eventually get prostate cancer; the rates are rising because they aren't dieing of the things we traditionally died of in the past - communicable diseases, war, accident and heart disease.
If we got out and started a good war, fewer people would die of cancer! Think of Iraq as a big anti-cancer crusade.
Like my raincoat!
-:sigma.SB
WARN
THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM
The article doesn't say if the chromosomes merge back into one or not. I can't imagine that this would be possible, given the complexity of DNA. So does the cell just sit there with two sets of chromosomes. Also, would this be a way to build some kind of super muscle, with twice as many mitochondria?
It wouldn't. A smoker only feels "calmed down" because their craving has been satiated. The physical effects of nicotine increase stress on the brain and heart, they can focus because they're not constantly thinking about when they'll get their next hit, or how long they'll have to wait.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
that I want to be squeezed back into my mother's womb just yet...
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
Not only that, but many cancers are now curable if caught early enough. Especially cancers that are most common in children and young adults, because typically the tissues and cells that are in overdrive in the developing stages (and most susceptible to becoming cancerous) are less active in adulthood.
Good examples of cancers with excellent cure rates are Wilm's tumor, acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), neuroblastoma,retinoblastoma, and Hodgkin's lymphoma.
And this is just breaking the tip of the iceberg. Most of that NIH money actually goes to good use, unlike a lot of government spending.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
I'm sorry for your loss (really).
Close, but not quite. I'm the opposite of ADHD. As a kid I could focus intently on one task for hours, oblivious to everything around me. And I didn't smoke as a kid :-) If smokers simply had untreated ADHD, then they would have had ADHD as kids before they learned to smoke.
But you are right in a way. Smoking did calm me down, and after I quit I felt really stupid for about a year because I couldn't focus well.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
On how long until this is made into a weapon. Large-scale reverse-division on a complex organism would have some very unpleasant consequences, and on other scales one could probably use the concept to reverse/prevent healing.
I can use this cell undevision (fusion?) technique to revert myself to a giant sperm. And I'll be smart enough to choose the best genes before finding myself an equally oversized egg to start over. Who wouldn't want in-home eugenics?
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
You hit the head on the nail. (purposely reversed)
If we didn't do anyhtign that is supposed to be bad ofr you or cause this problem or that we would lead a very borring life. One has to wonder if that life is worth living. So we ignore some of the threats and add a littel fun to our life and then it becomes more interesting. People who smoke, jump out of airplanes, eat well done meats or whatever are just weighing their pleasures against the long term health.
I have a friend who got a bacteria infection on a heart valve and he needed it replaced. I guess he got it from using dirty needles. The doctors told him he could get a pig heart and live for a certain time while taking some drug that would eventualy kill him or get a mechanical vavle and take even worse drugs. He is smokeing, drinking, doing minor drugs like pot and i asked him why. He said he already knows he is goign to die soon. There is no sence in waiting a few extra years and being miserable in the proccess. I agree with him.
But nicotine is a stimulant just like ADHD medications are. Are you sure that there aren't multiple things going on at the same time here? I don't know anything about the biology, so you may well be right, but I'd be interested in a url to some information on a correlation or lack thereof between ADHD and smoking. Also, what do you mean by increased stress on the brain?
Cow Cube
William Dycus of Ohio State University also collaborated on this project. Send your comments to dycus.2@osu.edu.
wierd thing about his cancer: they caught it early, over a year ago, and after the surjury the docs said it was contained and had not spread, and even just four weeks ago he was checked out and the docs said it was in complete remission. then BANG, the lymphoma roared back so fast the docs didn't even know what hit him, he went into a coma and died before the MRI and other test results could see what the problem was.... he was in his early sixties... both my grandfathers died of cancer.
i disable sigs
I can't say whether or not you have ADHD, but I'd just like to correct a misconception that ADHD just implies a lack of attention. The name is a misnomer. ADHD is really about a lack of ability to control attention. An ADHD person will sometimes hyper focus to the exclusion of everything and sometimes have no ability to feel comfortable continuing to do anything for very long. Obviously, everyone falls somewhere on that sort of scale. It's just when someone hits those extremes too often that it is a problem.
Cow Cube
I wonder if it is possible for the cell to redivide after the reverse happened. This could end up being some control mechanism for nanobots or nano-medicine.
> We've been at war with cancer for over 50 years and we are loosing that war. Loosing that war on who? Loosing it on "ze Germans"?
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
Why is it that with cells, multiplication and divison are the same thing? It's like some weird algebra. Yet the inverse operation is super-difficult.
$META_SIG_JOKE
Wouldn't the reverse of cell division simply be cell multiplication? That doesn't sound so hard.
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
..large scale fusion! ;-)
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
Where are the Tuttle jokes? What's happened with Slashdot? The story mentions Oklahoma, people! Let's get on the ball!
You know, maybe they can reverse that city manager's cell division! Ha ha!
No, wait, let me try again.
In Tuttle, Oklahoma, the cells divide you!
Okay. Maybe there's a reason no one's done a Tuttle joke yet. Although "unfunny" doesn't usually count as a reason on Slashdot.
Phiwum's law: anyone that names an obvious law after himself and then puts it in his own sig is just pathetic.
Unfunny. Sort of like your post.
In Canada (I'm sure the USA is similar), the overall cancer rate is now 1 in 2 ... that's right 50% of the population will contract cancer at some point in their life (most of those will eventually die from it).
More people die of cancer because fewer people die of other things. Most (certainly not all) cancer is related to age. We are getting very good at living a very long time compared to what is "natural". The result is that old age disease take a heavier portion of our deaths. We have dramatically slashed the number of deaths to viruses and infection in first world nations.
Even cancer is less of a killer then it used to be. More people get cancer because they live longer, but more people survive cancer then ever. As far as sucking air goes, there has not been a better time to be alive (in terms of life span) so long as you are in a first world nation. It is entirely possible that most kids born in 2000 will live to see 2100. Hell, it is very likely that a large portion of the people who are just now leaving college will live to see 2100.
Method of immortality
Abstract
A method for completely stopping aging, thus achieving immortality. Considering a)the less nuclear cell divisions, the more remaining lifetime, and considering b)a method for controlling divisions is already known, this method of immortality will achieve its goal by setting up the cell in such way that it will be induced to perform a division by zero, resulting in infinite vitality.
Medicine in general is a losing battle. No matter how careful we are, our bodies will accumulate wear as time goes on, from background radiation, necessary metabolic processes, and environmental facters we can control to an extent. Eventually we all die of old age, unless something else kills us first. But modern medicine has now removed the vast majority of non age-related causes of death, such as simple diseases or infections or injuries. Now, essentially, we can only stave off age related health problems for so long, and the longer we try, the greater the cost.
There really should be a -1 Idiot rating.
People who don't smoke, drink or do drugs, who eat properly, exercise regularly, watch their fat intake, get plenty of fiber, and do everything else right do NOT, in fact, live longer.
It just SEEMS like it's taking them forever to die.
The inverse of division is multiplication, so cell division is its own inverse.
*Kryten's head explodes*
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Actually, "cancer" is an umbrella name for a large group of different diseases with different causes and symptoms. More and more of them are curable or at least treatable.
But yeah, quitting smoking would be a good idea for a number of reasons, of course...
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
I woke up one day and said "I'm going to quit next monday." I spent that week tapering off somewhat, and used the patch when I quit. I don't know how much of an effect the tapering and patch had, but they were isignificant compared to the effect of simply quitting.
.... and some have not. Don't assume that it's because "they just didn't try hard enough".
This is why there are so many intolerant anti-smoking crusaders out there. "I did it, so you can".
That is catagorically not the case. Some people are more highly addicted than others. For some, the psyc component is stronger, and in others, the physical.
Studies of people with multiple addictions have repetedly shown that of all the "addictions" out there (coke, heroin, booze, etc) that the one the addicts find the most difficult to give up is smoking.
Some people can have a drink and leave the bar. Some can't. Some of those that can't lave the bar will eventually be able to successfully give it up - and some never will.
Society recognises the difficulty addicts have, and the cost to society - and they fund things like needle exchanges, all sorts of rehab and drop in programmes, etc, to try to help them BECAUSE of the difficulty they face in trying to get rid of a highly addictive habit.
All smokers get is taxed to death and intollerance. Just because one approach worked for you - your particular personality, your specific body chemestry, and the wiring of your individual brain does NOT mean that it will work for everybody else.
Yes, a lot of people have quit cold turkey, and quite successfully
What society needs to do is recognise the difficulty that current smokers have, and try to come up with ways to HELP them, as they do other addicts, not turn them into outcasts who are just considered to have no willpower.
The ability to return a cell to metaphase upon the removal of a chemical (Flavopiridol) which causes the mitotic exit of cells which are expressing non-degredatable Cyclin B is interesting, but it definetly tells us nothing about how to reverse this process in non-transformed human cells. The press release is a bit too effusive about the potential of this finding to radically transform the treatment of cancer, etc. as the finding primarily recomfirms the hypothesis that the degredation of cyclin B is what gives directionality to the cell process, and by blocking the degredation of Cyclin B, you can reverse the cell cycle.
And just in case you're confused like the submitter, there's way more than one protein involved in the cell division process in any eukaryotic cell; Cyclins like Cyclin B are very important, but it's a whole host of proteins that are involved in ushering the cell from G1 to S to G2 to M; assuring alignment, proper exit, arrest upon damage, etc. [One could even argue that the whole point of most cells is to divide, and so every bit of the cell is important and/or participates in some way in the process...]
http://www.donarmstrong.com
There needs to be a new moderation tag for novel ways of slipping in Iraq jokes into a thread about biology. Sheesh.
... a way to get the Beatles back together. Science!
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
did anyone notice that the chromosomes eventually organize themselves into four groups? see the video again.
Many smokers are thought to smoke as self-medication, but it's not just ADHD. Schizophrenia is another example. Anxiety may be too.
When the policeman of the tie, rule you violate, hello punishment of the kitty?
The massive sunscreen may be responsible. Vitamin D deficiency increases cancer risk.
By a lot...
That is sure debatable. The primary product of NIH spending is new bioscience PhDs, and there is a tremendous glut of them. Like all government agencies, NIH's primary concern is wasting more money faster.
I would put my money on corporate bioscience research long before I would put in NIH, which has proven itself rather inept by unintentionally creating the 5-year post-doc.
OMFG!!!! GOOGLE CALENDAR!!!! why are we talking about CANCER!!!!!!!!
Sure there are cancers that can be beaten like ALL but what state does it leave the body in to fight off relapses and the obvious immune system deficiences inherent in fighting it? Cases such as this one (story on my company website) are really quite common even though the underlying cancer has been "cured".
The real cure will come when the body can safely shake off cancer and remain in a state that it can survive long term, whether that means the kidneys remain functional or the immune system is not massively compromised. My opinion is that this will only occur when we can synthesize and instruct immune system cells outside the body to attack the underlying cause, whether that be cancer, a virus or even a bacterium. Then they will simply get daily injections of those synthetic cells until they truly are cured.
That day surely cannot be too far away.
Started out with a brain and devolved that sucker. Might even explain the ears.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
The question is will they want to, given a reasonable possibility that half of the population will police the other armed with shark-mounted, Linux-running lasers?
Or alternatively, just make the smokes so damn poisonous that they have a 100% mortality rate (within say, 18 months), and the problem will "solve itself", so to speak.
They'll either quit - or die.
Same position they're currently in, but with a little added motivation to stop procrastinating, and actually put their mind to it, rather than giving up, saying it's "too hard", blaming it on psych studies, finding any excuse other than accepting the fact that they're too complacent with their current situation.
Quitting is hard. Boo fucking hoo. So is life. Smoke if you like (just not around me) and kill yourself then - just don't come running to me when you're diagnosed with a life threatening illness you brought on with your own behavior...
Note: I'm not seriously suggesting the above as the new "quit" campaign. but shit people... stop making excuses.
smash.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Same position they're currently in, but with a little added motivation to stop procrastinating, and actually put their mind to it, rather than giving up, saying it's "too hard", blaming it on psych studies, finding any excuse other than accepting the fact that they're too complacent with their current situation.
..... "Oh, don't be so lazy - just get off your arse and DO something"
a) Who said anything about not trying to quit?
b) Who was blaming psych studies? I was simply trying to make the point that it *is* an addition, and about just how "easy" it is to quit. And the point is that it's NOT easy. Do you honestly think that so many people around the world - given what we know now - would still be smoking if it was just a matter of not bothering to buy the next pack?
What you are saying there illustrates my point perfectly. Too complacent? Looking for an excuse? That's just as absurd as what people said about clinical depression 20 years ago
just don't come running to me when you're diagnosed with a life threatening illness you brought on with your own behavior...
I would have no intentions of doing so - I'm very well aware of the fact that I started of my own free will, and I not going to be a hypocryte and blame the tobacco companies, either.
Oh, yeah - that reminds me.
Some of us are still around that started when it *wasn't* obvious or clear - to *anybody* - that smoking would do anything other than affect your wind. Hell - I competed in provincial long-distance cross-country and steeple-chase competitions while smoking a pack a day, and was on my varsity basketball & volleyball teams, and was able to run the mile in just under 6 minites. (I think my best time was around 5:53 or thereabouts - it was a LONG time ago). And I've been smoking a pack a day since I was 13 (it WAS cool to smoke back then, believe it or not). If you think I haven't tried numerous times over the years to stop, you'r e dreaming.
I'm glad the previous poster WAS able to quit - I'm sure he sees numerable improvements in his life because of it. But to say that not being able to quite is a sign of lazyness or just a lack of willpower shows a total ignorance of the subject.
Yes, I - and every other smoker - started of our own free will. And yes, it IS hard to quit - so try supporting those who are trying and hopefully succeeding, instead of pissing on those who *haven't* been able to do it yet.
scientists were able to reverse the operation of the arithmetic core of a CPU. In a first experiment they reversed the multiplication of two large primes.
On a long enough timeline everyone's survival rate is zero.
A smoker only feels "calmed down" because their craving has been satiated
Actually, a smoker feels calmed down due to elevated levels of dopamine generated by the nicotine. While withdrawl symptoms can cause stress which is then relieved by more nicotine, that doesn't discount the stimulant effects of smoking.
I have to say, that's a stupid statement. You essentially stated a truism: if you don't die of anything else, you'll die of cancer. The problem is that it is equally applicable to any other means of death, eg. if you don't die of anything else, you'll eventually die of being crushed under a 4-tonne flying pig.
I can see what you're trying to say about increasing incidences of cancer with advancing age, but your understanding is flawed. Cancer doesn't occur because of telomere shortening in general (though certain cases can involve telomere shortening becuase of the uncontrolled division). It occurs because certain "stop-point" proteins are inactivated by mutation to the gene causing uncontrolled division.
And also, telomeres don't shorten "due to ageing". They shorten due to cell division (with every cell division, the two daughter cells have a slightly shortened telomere, unless they are stem cells with active telomerase). While this may seem the same on the surface, you have to realise that many tissue types in the body undergo little to no division past adulthood. In fact, post-mitotic tissues (tissues that don't have dividing cells) such as in the brain and heart can still become cancerous, even though the telomeres are many times longer than the average liver cell's for example.
You are obviously interested in cancer and ageing, so I implore you to grab a relevant New Scientist or Scientific American issue and read the reviews. They'll explain the relationships better than i've been able to go into (sorry for sounding so condescending - but as a biochem. postgrad it annoys me to see stuff like that misstated!).
you can quit. say this often.
i've been a non-smoker for 1 year, 51 weeks (my stop anniversary is 4/20! hah!)
the thing that finally worked for me was practice. you gotta practice quitting until you get it right. 1 day, 3 weeks, 14 months, whatever, if you fail, try again, and try again soon.
the other thing that helps in quitting is knowing yourself: why you smoke, why you want to smoke, what helps you not want to smoke, etc. self knowledge and a bit of determination is about all you need. oh, yeah, try a nicotine replacement.
me, i was a smoker for 18 years. i tried for the last 10 of those years to quit at least once or twice a year. in the last 4 of those years, i tried many, many times, each time getting a bit farther. this last time, i decided i didn't want to chew that frikin gum anymore, so i stopped chewing it and got on with my life. probably the best thing i ever did for myself.
you can do it. good luck.
As someone who quit smoking 17 years ago, and who started again 5 years ago (and immediately was back at my old level) I can tell you that maybe some things are not as easy as you think
And perhaps, in the words of J. F. Rutherford (or the band Tortoise, if you prefer) "millions now living will never die". Which would be kind of nice. As long as I'm one of them.
It's not a cure for old age, its no longer possible after a certain point so you can't reverse an entire lineage back to one cell.
It's not going to reverse cancer either, for the same reason. What it *might* do, if you can determine on a cellular level which cells are cancerous, is halt the growth (assuming it doesn't just start dividing again. It doesn't even say if the DNA recombines, which I doubt it would do.
The real value is that old scientific standby, knowledge. Greater knowledge of what makes a cell tick, what factors trigger when its ready to divide will result in new cures, safer cures, and, of course, new understanding. If we can figure out why a cell divides, we can perhaps block those triggers and stop the division of cells like cancer. Greatly slowing or even stopping cell metabolism and division will be an important part of imposing a long term stasis or hibernation in humans experiencing long space travels to mars and the like. Understanding how to trigger cell reproduction could be one of the most important steps in reviving persons who have cyrogenically frozen themselves, too.
Demented But Determined.
I can't claim firsthand knowledge of whether ADHD medication would help a smoker quit, but I'll attest to the fact that on the occasions I skip my morning Adderall, I'm pretty damn likely to find myself in line for a pack of Parliaments later that day. And as long as I stay on the pills, that is for weeks at a stretch, I won't need to smoke at all. My doctor mentioned the same thing re: ADHD-type personalities frequently found to self-medicate with cigarettes, and it seems perfectly natural to me. Obvious, in retrospect.
This is also why I feel it's inaccurate to portray the dirty, disgusting habit of smoking as an unqualified negative. Take away a man's cigarettes and you'll increase his life expectancy twenty years, but if he's anything like me, you'll also turn him into a gibbering mess. And this has nothing to do with physical dependency--nicotine or amphetamines, I'm an equal-opportunity druggie. Either one lets me stay as focused and creative as I need.
Bonsai Kitten: TNG
"More people die of cancer because fewer people die of other things."
Keep telling yourself that while you spoon down the hydrogenated vegetable oil and chemically enhanced chicken, boyo. And good luck to ya! Me, I believe otherwise. Don't forget the sunscreen!
Funny is that this whole business is just 'in your head'. The physical need for nicotine lasts 3-4 days after you smoke your last cig. After that it's just your mind that wants the nicotine.
Thats 20 more years of paying taxes! But really it's all for your good...
"You're everywhere. You're omnivorous."
There is a link through Dopamine levels. Have a look.
"You're everywhere. You're omnivorous."
This is great news! We are now one step closer to the super saiyan fusion attack I've seen on Dragon Ball GT!
ADHD medication? No. Depression medication? Yes.
Zyban, a fanfrickin'tastic smoking cessation pill, is simply remarketed Welbutrin. Welbutrin is an anti-depressant.
It seems that they discovered many of the smokers taking Welbutrin reported a marked decrease in cigarette cravings. Now you can buy the *exact* same drug with a different colour coating and a different name to help you quit smoking.
I have taken it. I was doing well, until a death in the family (non-cancer or smoking-related) buggered me up. Pathetic excuse, I know.
But while I was on Zyban I would literally go hours (unheard of any other time) without even thinking about a cigarette. It's really something else.
hehe. :)
I know that there are health units in Ontario that offer smoking cessation "classes" where those wishing to quit go for tips and share experiences. Sort of like an AA group without the 12 steps.
There's also a rumour that the health units in Ontario will soon start offering free patches and nicotine replacements to those wishing to quit.
So there is some help there for them and there is more coming.
The good news is that today (at least in Ontario) fewer teens are starting to smoke and more people are successfully quitting. I believe the last percentage I heard was down to something like 13% of Ontarians are smokers. Not too bad. Although it seems like I'm friends with all of that 13% which makes it doubly hard to quit.
Honey I shrunk the kids or something?
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
This is absolutly news to me (I'm in Kingston), but it's about bloody well time, if it's true.
I believe the last percentage I heard was down to something like 13% of Ontarians are smokers. Not too bad. Although it seems like I'm friends with all of that 13% which makes it doubly hard to quit.
I dunno - that seems to be pretty low to me, looking around. Do you know if that's 13% of the TOTAL population, or the percentage of people of legal age? That could effectively double the rate to 26% or so, which strikes me as a bit more realistic.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Heh heh. Sentiment appreciated. But really, in my case it'd probably be an extra twenty years mumbling to myself, growing a beard, and drawing welfare as opposed to enjoying an abbreviated lifespan as a productive, high-earning, high-taxpaying member of society, all enabled--in a hypothetical world without pharma--by the wonder drug known as nicotine. Even better in our age of synthetic dependency, now that I can regain those twenty years just by remembering to take my ADHD medication (safe, they assure me) instead of relying on cigarettes.
Anyway, I live in New York. You probably end up paying more in cigarette taxes here every month than they'd bleed from your income in twenty years of subsistence-level mediocrity, which is probably my strongest incentive to stick to those happy little pills.
Bonsai Kitten: TNG
Not quite as impressive as the blurb would have us believe, but it a very good start. My only concern is how long it can prevent mitosis, since it seems to just push the cell back through one phase. It seems that you need to saturate the cell in protease inhibitor to stop it... I'm wondering how this would actually turn into a workable cancer treatment, since you can't just dump a load of inhibitors into the person's system and hope they accumulate in the cancer cells... that would lead to problems elsewhere.
Still, very cool.
-- sorry, my uncle just died from lymphoma this weekend, and i keep staring at the cigarette i'm smoking with a pained look.
Oddly enough, my baby brother died of lymphoma this weekend. He was a lifetime nonsmoker raised in a lifetime nonsmoking household.
I'm the black sheep of the family. I'm smoking right now too, although I'm smoking a pipe without inhaling (didn't take it up until I was in my 20s), an act whose only demonstrated connection to cancer is a ten times reduction in the risk of stomach cancer. Of course I don't trust that connection as the so called effect is really too small to take very seriously, despite being "ten times."
Ten times almost nil is still almost nil. We're talking odds not dissimlar to buying 10 lottery tickets to have a ten times better chance of winning.
Oddly enough the connection between smoking cigarttes (cigarettes, not tobacco. The distinction is important) and lung cancer is roughly at the same magnitude. If you go into the oncology wing of a hospital you will find that there about 9 or 10 smokers in there with lung cancer for every one nonsmoker.
That looks pretty damning, until you realize that what you are not seeing in that situation is all the people who do not have lung cancer. There are about 999,990 of them.
10 times almost nil is still almost nil. Lung cancer is a rare condition, even among smokers. You take greater risks than that taking a shower, driving to work, or taking a walk in a thunderstorm.
You are also falling into the trap of equating lung cancer risk with the risk of cancer. This is nonsense. As Frank Zappa pointed out to a pair of talking blonde boobs when she asked him why he was still smoking when he had cancer:
"Lady, I have prostate cancer.
As for lymphoma:
"Results: In our pooled study population of 6,594 cases and 8,892 controls, smoking was associated with slightly increased risk estimates (OR, 1.07; 95% CI, 1.00-1.15). Stratification by non-Hodgkin lymphoma subtype revealed that the most consistent association between cigarette smoking and non-Hodgkin lymphoma was observed among follicular lymphomas (n = 1452). Compared with nonsmokers, current smokers had a higher OR for follicular lymphoma (1.31; 95% CI, 1.12-1.52) than former smokers (1.06; 95% CI, 0.93-1.22). Current heavy smoking (36 pack-years) was associated with a 45% increased OR for follicular lymphoma (1.45; 95% CI, 1.15-1.82) compared with nonsmokers.
Conclusions: Cigarette smoking may increase the risk of developing follicular lymphoma but does not seem to affect risk of the other non-Hodgkin lymphoma subtypes we examined. Future research is needed to determine the biological mechanism responsible for our subtype-specific results."
Notice that the "increase" of risk factor falls inside the CI, and the inevitable conclusion, paying particular attention to mention of need to demonstrate a mechanism before unbelievable results can be deemed believable.
In this age when every weather report is delivered with a phrasing to imply that the spring shower on the way is going to kill you it isn't really surprising that something as serious as cancer also gets way overhyped as a risk.
But, as pointed out by another poster, all you have to do to raise your odds of getting some sort of cancer (and the "some" is a very important word in that sentence) to a virtual certainty is . . . live long enough.
Want to avoid getting cancer? It's easy enough. This afternoon chainsmoke two packs of cigarettes, then throw yourself under a train.
You, sir, are going to die. Get used to the idea.
Sure, play the odds, but know what the odds really are, and don't sweat them overmuch because you are going to "lose" anyway, given enough time.
KFG
Well I know for a fact that the health unit in the county that I work for has smoking cessation groups already. I've heard recently about the free patches and nicotine supplements just recently, so that could still not happen. But it sounded pretty certain, so who knows.
And I did some looking on that 13% statistic. I believe that figure was for teens. As I found this and it looks like we'll have to meet in the middle. It claims 20% of Ontarians ages 15 and up are smokers as of 2003.
But do keep an eye out for the health units offering the nicotine replacements if you are interested. Or call them to find out if it's in the works.
I've just thought, you could actually inject this stuff into a foetus and wind it all the way back to like before conception or summat.
You could actually destroy a soul - Take that God!!!
This sure does bring more meaning to the age-old saying "I brought you into this world I can take you out of it!"
Moderation is not supposed to be used as an indicator of agreement.
Here's one such url that suggests, one, people diagnosed with ADHD do tend to be smokers, and two, nicotine's stimulant properties may work in the same way as Ritalin and Adderall to alleviate the symptoms. Here's another url, yielding such soundbites as "Nicotine, in particular, may act as a medication that improves ADHD symptoms" and "Nicotine May Help Calm ADHD Storm, Study Finds." I'd summarize my further explorations, but I lost interest.
Bonsai Kitten: TNG
So stop. Take up heroin. It's less addictive. It might even be cheaper.
Good health is merely the slowest rate at which one can die.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
In Soviet Russia, cells divide you!
Sadly i don;t think this will reverse or stop the aging.
Aging comes into play because when the cells replicate they replicate 'less perfect' than when they were first grown. I would assume that when the reversal takes place, any flaws will be translated into the parent cell.
Shame really. No, 'Fountain of youth: elixir' for us this year.
>>>Scanning for I.D.I.O.T.S. >>>
>>>I.D.I.O.T.S. FOUND! >>>
Since you'll obviously die from cirrhosis of the liver.
And yes, you should quit smoking. Right now.
Maybe, maybe not. How old is he? If he's in his early twenties then yes, he should quit. Right now.
But if he's in his forties, quitting isn't going to help a bit. It didn't help my uncle, who died of lung cancer at age 78, three decades after he stopped smoking.
I stopped five years ago, but I'll probably still die of cancer. But that wasn't why I quit, I quit because it's 95 F in the summer and 10 F in the winter, you can't smoke inside at work, and they keep jacking up the tobacco tax.
If I'm unlucky enough to live long enough to get put in a nursing home, I plan to take up cigarettes again.
"My celluar developent! it's been..."
"Reversed! For this first fim ever! Ha!?"
"Way to go Frank!"
Or, you could always join Quitters, Inc....
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
KFG, you are a justifying miracle.
You are also falling into the trap of equating lung cancer risk with the risk of cancer.
This may appear non-sensical but is not, really. Our bodies can fight things, or give up and lose. If we start a battle on multiple fronts, we have less chance of winning. So, smoking inhibits our ability to be healthy, while also increasing our cancer risk, while also increasing our lung cancer risk. Think of it as the smoker's trifecta.
In this age when every weather report is delivered with a phrasing to imply that the spring shower on the way is going to kill you it isn't really surprising that something as serious as cancer also gets way overhyped as a risk.
How did you conclude that cancer risks are overhyped? In your post you did battle with a few studies, but they cause cancer too. IMHO you are a doctor's dream, soaking up the latest B.S. right up until you need a room full of doctors.
Just to be crystal clear about this, I care about you KFG. I hope you have no wife or children. And I hope the thrill of argument eventually loses to the thrill of being smoke-free.
I come here for the love
>> A smoker only feels "calmed down" because their craving has been satiated
> Actually, a smoker feels calmed down due to elevated levels of dopamine generated by
> the nicotine. While withdrawl symptoms can cause stress which is then relieved by more
> nicotine, that doesn't discount the stimulant effects of smoking.
You are both right. The dopamine effect is what gets people hooked on nicotine in the first place, but as use continues, the dopamine effect lessens and the cravings take over.
My girlfriend just quit smoking. That was two months of hell for both of us.
jfs
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
KFG, you are a justifying miracle.
Exactly!
How did you conclude that cancer risks are overhyped?
I've actually read the studies, not the newspapers.
IMHO you are a doctor's dream
You don't know me very good.
KFG
The overall cancer death rate is actually 1 in 1.
No it isn't. My grandmother died at age 99 after she fell and broke her hip. If that hadn't happened, she probably would have died in her sleep. NOT of cancer, but of its opposite - the telomere is all used up and the cells can't divide any more. Cancer is unregulated cell dividion, NOT the cell's inability to divide.
And then there are friends of mine who have died; one of heart disease, one of an accident, one of suicide, one was murdered.
To say that half of all people (let alone ALL of all people) die of cancer is retarded. I've known lots of people who died, and only a few died of cancer.
I'm sure I Aint gonna get prostate cancer. No Sir. Not me.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3072021.stm
It's like I allways say: One pron per day, keep the doctor's finger away!
Now if they can roll back the state of cells in the chemical end-state known as "dead", my creature will finally see the light of day and walk the earth!
--
make install -not war
Sounds like you found the right studies to justify your own beliefs.
I want more life fucker!
your logic does nothing to explain the increases in incidence and mortality of cancer in the young as well as the old.
1. The last time I checked, slashdot was still a Linux and OSS news site.
2. So one can assume most of the readers here run Linux or BSD.
3. The last time I checked, Quicktime and iTunes it did not run on Linux or BSD.
4. The question is:
WHY WOULD YOU POST A VIDEO THAT NOBODY CAN WATCH?
--
BSD Podcasts @ http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/
Haven't the Dutch been doing this for centuries with colchicine on bulbs to create n-ploid (or 2n-ploid) varieties of plants?
"I am only an egg." - Valentine Michael Smith
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
1. The last time I checked, slashdot was "News for Nerds".
2. So your assumption is invalid.
3. The last time I checked, I was running both iTunes and Linux, on seperate partitions.
4. The answer is:
BECAUSE MANY PEOPLE CAN WATCH IT, YOU ARE NOT EVERYBODY.
Considering that cancer is pretty much cell mitosis gone amok, I can see why this would be exciting. Couple this with cell apopsis and you might be able to cure the scourge of the 20th and 21st centuries.
I can only hope. But then I've got a witches brew of ALS, cancer and what not in my family.
Sounds like you found the right studies to justify your own beliefs.
Quite the contrary, I don't care what the date shows, only that the data is good, so that my own behaviors can be suitably informed.
Risk of lung cancer, 1 in 100,000/yr. for non smokers, 10 in 100,000/yr for cigarette smokers. Ten times higher. That's the data, and I accepted that in my post.
I have not quibbled with the data, only the charecterization of that data as representing some sort of high risk.
And, of course, as always, correlation does not equal causation, and when the risk factors are small without knowledge of mechanism they should not be taken over seriously.
But then very few people even understand what the word risk means.
KFG
Define "nobody." It played just fine here, on an AMD64 Linux box with mplayer and Firefox's mplayer plugin.
PEBKAC.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
"If that hadn't happened, she probably would have died in her sleep." Of what? Too much sleep?
You essentially stated a truism: if you don't die of anything else, you'll die of cancer. The problem is that it is equally applicable to any other means of death, eg. if you don't die of anything else, you'll eventually die of being crushed under a 4-tonne flying pig.
It's nothing but conventional wisdom. I'm not a medical professional or flying-pig researcher, so hopefully nobody will treat my post as a primary source.
And I never said telomeres were the only thing that kept cells from becoming cancerous; merely pointing out that cells that do divide aren't going to do so forever without errors. When the error rate rises sufficiently, something nasty is going to happen... it's just a matter of time. Heart attacks, flying pigs, and so forth are nowhere near as inevitable as genetic glitches.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
That's really getting complicated! Big deal, now we can do rollbacks. So I guess we'll have to "version" our girlfriends,kids,etc... That could be a future extension of Ruby on Rails Migrations.
...that even cells... ...well, you get the point.
Disclaimer: I was born in OK and attended the University of Oklahoma.
To find out what happened to poor Jimmy Kudo....
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
If we got out and started a good war, fewer people would die of cancer! Think of Iraq as a big anti-cancer crusade.
That's really offensive not funny. 20000 tonnes of depeted uranium have been exploded in Iraq since 2003 and cancers and birth defects are rocketing. The microscopic particles have even travelled as far as the UK resulting in a 400% rise in airborne radioactivity during March2003. Don't joke about 200,000 innocent people (many children in that number) dying, you sick w*nker.
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
So your premise is that lung cancer happens to 10 people per million. So right now in the US there are 280*10 = 2,800 people with lung cancer. [In a later post, you say it is 100 per million.]
Dodge these stats...(source)
(1) An estimated 173,700 new cases of lung cancer and an estimated 160,440 deaths from lung cancer will occur in the United States during 2004.
(2) Lung cancer is the leading cancer killer in both men and women.
(3) 87% of lung cancer cases are caused by smoking.
(4) Smoking cigars or pipes also increases the risk of lung cancer.
My comments:
(1) translates to 573 dying per million (notice how I am skipping right over those who just get lung cancer). Assuming only 25% are smokers, who represent 90% of those who get lung cancer, then that is about 2,000 smokers per million smokers who die every YEAR (at least 20 times more than your 10 per million, or 100 per million, figures). So lets say the average smoker smokes for 40 years (probably optimistic) then a smoker's chance of dying of lung cancer in their lifetime is about 1 in 1.
(2) "the leading cancer killer" + 90% of the people with it are smokers translates to smoking being the worst cancer creating thing of all -- pretty hard to minimize the connection between smoking and killer cancer now.
(3) corresponds with your previous citation
(4) your pipe is doing you no favors
I come here for the love
So your premise is that lung cancer happens to 10 people per million.
No. That's a typo. I hit an extra 9. You'll note that said 10 people 100,000.
(3) 87% of lung cancer cases are caused by smoking.
This is simply false. There is no known cause for most kinds of lung cancer. Asbesteosis is the rare exception. There is a correlation between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer. I have, however, not only agreed with that percentage of incidence, but I was a bit more pessimistic, positing 90%.
You would appear to be one of those people who does not understand what is meant by the word risk.
(4) your pipe is doing you no favors
And I specifically denied that it was, although there is no known correlation between pipe smoking and lung cancer. Even the Surgeon General's report specifically notes this.
You are arguing your beliefs, not what I said. My beliefs were actually stood on their ear when I saw the actual data.
KFG
sending duplicate chromosomes back to the center of the original cell, an event once thought impossible
Now, there's two of me.
Every year I start in November and quit in January. It's actually quite easy to quit if you know you will be able to start again next winter.
Now we can prove evolution. Just reverse all the cells back to their previous state until we get back to the original single-cell organism.
OK. Sure, nobody would be around any more to see it, but that's beside the point.
It would also be a great opportunity for Earth to pass on that whole human mistake.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
It wouldn't.
It did make it easier for me.
I quit smoking when I started taking Concerta. It was still hard to do, and I had to use patches for a few months, but I was able to quit.
The GP is correct - part of the reason I smoked was that it gave me focus (I assume because of the acetylcholine/nicotine gateways in my brain), and having something that worked better, lasted longer, and wouldn't give me lung cancer was a big help.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Welbutrin is an anti-depressant.
Interestingly enough, it's also used to treat ADHD (and panic attacks). I hope it doesn't turn out to have nasty side-effects, because it seems like a very useful drug.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
No. That's a typo. I hit an extra 9. You'll note that said 10 people 100,000.
Of course it is your typo. And when "corrected", as you did later, it is still wrong by at least a factor of 20 -- which you chose not to comment on. Rule 137, when on the losing side of an argument, change the focus...
(3) 87% of lung cancer cases are caused by smoking.
This is simply false. There is no known cause for most kinds of lung cancer. Asbesteosis is the rare exception. There is a correlation between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer. I have, however, not only agreed with that percentage of incidence, but I was a bit more pessimistic, positing 90%. You would appear to be one of those people who does not understand what is meant by the word risk.
Every single thing in human life is a "risk" (i.e. probability). Heisenberg saw to that. Your hair-splitting proves nothing.
Your next effort of fact subversion in that sentence is directed at the American Lung Association -- is that your arrogance, love of argument or denial-is-the-best-policy talking?
In another effort at a trifecta you throw in a bit of fact splitting -- 87% vs 90% -- without realizing that I threw that in to give you credit and to show that the facts I cited also deserve respect. Repeat after me, "Arguing about a 3% difference in a stat is not a great way to spend a Thursday".
(4) your pipe is doing you no favors
there is no known correlation between pipe smoking and lung cancer. Even the Surgeon General's report specifically notes this.
The American Lung Association doesn't agree with you. Who ya gonna trust, Denial Meister, the one that plays into your pipe smoke, or the one that says you will die of lung cancer, period, if you continue? Someone so in love with the word "risk" needs to apply it to the person they see in the bathroom mirror in smoke filled morning.
You are arguing your beliefs, not what I said.
Cite a single "belief" of _mine_ above.
I come here for the love
Not that I think you have ADHD, but some people think that one of the signs/benefits is Hyperfocus:
i versity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfocus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhd#Views_on_neurod
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
Every single thing in human life is a "risk"
Bingo, we haaaaaaaave a winner!
KFG
I took Welbutrin to help me quit smoking six or so years ago. The Welbutrin made me so sick that I decided to quit cold-turkey so I could stop taking the Welbutrin.
If I recall correctly, you are supposed to take it for two weeks before you stop smoking. I didn't last a week. I tossed the cigarettes and the Welbutrin in the trash and never looked back.
This was the second time that I had quit cold-turkey. The previous time I had lasted two years before I foolishly accepted a cigar from a friend.
Not long after I quit I had the first of many seizures. To be fair, my family has quite a history with epilepsy, including one Great-great-Aunt who died of an epilepsy-induced heart attack (or so I am told, it was before my time).
But I was 42 at the time, kind of a late start for epilepsy.
I really don't think much of Welbutrin, it certainly didn't work as intended for me. And I'll always have suspicions about it triggering my seizures.
On the other hand, it's been six years since I quit. And I really don't have much of a desire to start up again.
Ohh, there would be no toilet paper without government coddling the forestry industry and managing the sewers....right
Both paper and water supplies existed long before the government did anything about them. Likewise, there are plenty of third-party verifications for all sorts of privately-run systems, from charities, to food quality, to the real speed of a new computer chip in practice.
Your "If the government didn't do it, no one would" reasoning is somewhere between childishly ignorant and a downright lie. When companies "cut corners" to make profits, no one punishes more harshly than the market.
When my kids are ultra bratty, I always threaten to "put them back inside mommy". Now maybe I can enforce that threat.
Table-ized A.I.
WHY WOULD YOU POST A VIDEO THAT NOBODY CAN WATCH?
Here is the ASCII version:
frame 1: O........O
frame 2: O.....O
frame 3: O..O
frame 4: OO
frame 5: O)
frame 6: O
Table-ized A.I.
No. But here is a process that would reverse ageing. Three cell join together, froming a single cell, but using the most common dna segments, where there are differences between the cells. A check-sum process. The
combined cell then splits into four cells again. But in the process the've correct any errors in the DNA
of any one cell.
This is why there are so many intolerant anti-smoking crusaders out there. "I did it, so you can".
I am emphatically NOT an "intolerant anti-smoking crusader." I hated them when I smoked and I vowed I would not become one when I quit. The only reason I posted was because the grandparent post expressed a desire to quit.
I said "simply quit", because I do believe it to be the easiest way. It may not work the first time, or the second, or even the third. But if the desire to quit is really there, it will eventually work. By "simply quit", I mean to make the firm decision to stop smoking. I do NOT mean that you tell yourself "I will try to quit this week and see how it goes." I do NOT mean that you tell yourself "I am quitting, but will keep a pack around just in case I fail." I mean that you must tell yourself "as of this date I no longer smoke cigarettes.".
Frankly, I don't care if other people quit or not. If some guy does not want to quit, it won't bother me. But if they do, then they need to quit. Really.
p.s. You don't help an addict by telling him they can't quit. I'm doing the opposite, I'm telling them they CAN quit.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Isaid "simply quit", because I do believe it to be the easiest way. It may not work the first time, or the second, or even the third. But if the desire to quit is really there, it will eventually work. By "simply quit", I mean to make the firm decision to stop smoking. I do NOT mean that you tell yourself "I will try to quit this week and see how it goes." I do NOT mean that you tell yourself "I am quitting, but will keep a pack around just in case I fail." I mean that you must tell yourself "as of this date I no longer smoke cigarettes.".
.... eventually. Some with your methods, some with others. And some , regardless of desire, methods or number of attempts, will not. That's the nature of addiction.
That's as silly as telling an alchololic to just "stop drinking". It worked for you - kudos, and well deserved. But not everybody is like you, and not everybody can do it as (relativly) easily AT ALL. Which is precicely the point I was trying to make originally.
p.s. You don't help an addict by telling him they can't quit. I'm doing the opposite, I'm telling them they CAN quit.
No, actually, you're not. You'e telling them that if they aren't successfull, it's because they don't really want to. To quote:
But if the desire to quit is really there, it will eventually work.
Again - with repeated atttempts, most people WILL be able to quit
You quit for twelve years. Stop calling it a failure and congratulate yourself! You know you can do it, so I can only assume that by continuing you don't want to quit. That's okay by me.
I smoked for twenty five years, and everyone around me said I could not quit because it was more addictive than heroin. They said after twenty five years it was impossible. "Oh man," they said, "you'll never be able to quit!" BUT I DID! It sounds too simplistic to be true, but it is: to quit smoking you simply do not smoke any more.
I'm not saying this to belittle anyone, I'm saying it as encouragement. If you want to quit, you CAN quit.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I'm so sick of people coddling smokers. They are so willing to play the victim. They whine like little girls. "I try to quit, I really do! I just can't." Bullshit. If you actually wanted to quit smoking, you would. If you pretend you can't, you're pathetic. I quit cold turkey the minute my girlfriend complained. Was it tempting to accept one if someone offered me one? Yes. Was it more of a burden than I could bear? Hell no. That shit was pie. Meanwhile, my best friend freaks out if he goes 20 minutes. I've watched him go through a pack in one sitting. Quit you goddamn pussies, or quit whinning. I don't want to hear it. I know you're full of shit, you're just embarassing yourself. Same goes for any other kind of addict. I've done them all and you are just fucking weak. Go jack off, or get laid, and quit your bitching.
That's a strange line of assumption. Here's what I see you saying: Nicotine is a stimulant; ADHD drugs are stimulants; therefore, people who take nicotine have ADHD.
With that line of reasoning, everyone who drinks coffee or soda to stay awake has ADHD. Stimulants are used to treat numerous disorders, and are also present in every-day items like foods or drinks. I would find it hard to believe that a majority of people who continuously use stimulants in one form or another have ADHD.
On the point about ADHD medication making it easier to quit: possibly. This is not because the smoker necessarily has ADHD, but because the stimulants in ADHD medicine could help offset the cravings from the cigarettes by stimulating and pacifying the mind.
Also, just to quickly address this, smokers generally are calmed down by nicotine because it soothes the anxiety they feel when they are not smoking. This anxiety is actually a byproduct of their addiction to nicotine. Their brains become accomodated to the nicotine in cigarettes to the extent that when they are not dosing themselves, they do not produce enough dopamine, and thereby become anxious and unhappy. As for feeling more focused, this is partially an effect of the aforementioned reduction of anxiety, but is also likely related to the stimulant effects of nicotine. Nicotine does increase attention and memory, just as many other stimulants do.
As for carcinogenicity, nicotine does downregulate apoptosis, a process which helps kill cells that could become cancerous. Cigarettes are also a host to myriad other more strongly carcinogenic chemicals, however, and the amount of nicotine that is required to produce an effect similar to smoking is actually very little compared to the amount of other carcinogenic chemicals that enter the lungs while smoking. For this reason, people are encouraged to use the patch or gum when quitting.
Did you see the pool? They flipped the bitch!
As has been stated in other replies to my initial message, it is apparently thought that many smokers self medicate by smoking. My mistake was in not thinking about the many other conditions which are treated by stimulants.
Cow Cube
That argument has been used with schizophrenia as well, but further research has shown that smoking is actually a risk factor for the development of schizophrenia in those prone to it. Smokers self-medicate, but in fact their medication causes the condition that necessitates it.
Did you see the pool? They flipped the bitch!
Nor is it reasonable to dismiss valid problems as wild-assed conclusions (despite the tone of the parent). You seem to be under the (sadly-common) illusion that the human species is bound to an ever-improving and progressive condition. The facts disagree with you.
All the major indicators of general health -- adult height (Americans are getting smaller and smaller, and are quite smaller than the Frenchmen of the time of Charlemagne, who averaged a solid 6'), lifespan (see: Mediterranean, 3000 years of recorded history. see also: United States, modern-day), physical capacities (less-well recorded, but the anecdotal evidence of the past 200 years is overwhelming -- and look at the stock price of Robaxacet) -- they all point to a widespread decline in general health since the invention of penicillin. The fact that we can revive people, and operate in response to cardiac troubles doesn't magically make these people 'healthier'. It just makes them 'not dead'.
While there is likely some truth that people are dying of cancer because they're surviving other previously-common perils, it's naive to believe that cancer is just another symptom of old age. If so, why is the average lifespan of the modern first-world citizen not growing at a rate concurrent with the curing of the #1 killer, heart disease?
-GleeMany a true word hath been spoken in jest -- mod funny posts "Informative".
I'm not sure if this was your intention, but you're actually refuting the parent -- if people are surviving cancer, that leads to cancer deaths being an under-estimate of the rate of cancer in a given society
-GleeMany a true word hath been spoken in jest -- mod funny posts "Informative".
Not to nitpick, but you got the telomere thing completely wrong. The presence of telomeres in cellular DNA is what allows the process of cellular reproduction to continue...in other words, telomere loss does not cause cancer, it prevents it. In fact, it has been observed that cancerous cells possess a gene that produces telomerase, an enzyme that prevents a cell from expending a "telomere bead" during each reproduction (a "telomere bead" is the telomere-containing unit that drops off in a normal cell reproduction--when there are no more telomere beads left, the cell can no longer reproduce). It is the presence of telomerase that causes a cell to be effectively immortal, reproducing constantly without limit, hence the cancerous tumor.
The key to immortality (at least, this week) is understanding how to introduce telomerase into cells to prevent aging without causing uncontrolled cancerous reproduction of the cell. And then we just have to cure the remaining diseases. And prevent accidental deaths. Other than that, we're virtually immortal already.
Of course, none of what I'm saying impacts the validity of your overall point one bit--as we cure diseases, people will live longer and the incidence of death due to other diseases will rise. This does not constitute an "other-disease" epidemic. Rises in death rates due to particular diseases or families of disease should be ignored provided that they occur while overall life expectancy increases.
(I've often thought it would be instructive to graph the rising number of deaths due to other diseases as measles, mumps, flu, rubella, and polio were eradicated. After all, the people that would have fallen to those diseases ended up dying of something else eventually.)
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
Aside from the conversation you're having with the other guy, I'll also note that you are making the mistake of applying a risk calculation based on a large population to your own personal situation.
The genetic makeup & environment of some people is going to make their risk _much_ higher than that large-scale "average" which you are stating. (To be fair, the reverse would be true as well.)
But my main point is that your perception of risk based on the statistics applied on a large population is just as worthless as the perception of risk that you accuse everyone else of using.
To be a useful factor for making a decision, you need to calculate your risk based on factors that are directly applicable to your own personal situation.