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Rare "Healthy" Smokers Lungs Explained

Bruce66423 writes: New research suggests that a portion of the population suffers few problems from smoking because their genes enable the smoke's effects to be overcome. The Medical Research Council reports: "The new findings, which used the first analyses of genetic data from participants in UK Biobank, may one day help scientists develop better treatments for diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a collection of life-threatening lung disorders affecting almost one million people in the UK. The findings could also help improve interventions aimed at helping smokers to give up."

9 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Here's the fast version of the 4 paragraph article by mwfischer · · Score: 4, Funny

    "By comparing smokers and non-smokers as well as those with the disease and without they discovered sections of our DNA that reduce the risk of COPD.
    So smokers with "good genes" had a lower risk of COPD than those with "bad genes"."

    Top notch reporting, everyone. Solid work.

  2. Re:I smoke a little... by KGIII · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I do. I do indeed. I love it. On very, very, rare occasions you can find me smoking a pipe that doesn't contain marijuana. I inhale that too.

    I love the burst of cigar smoke in my lungs. It doesn't make me cough or anything and it tastes great. I used to like a fine cigar with rum and would sometimes dip the end in my rum (not the lit end, silly goose). Then I realized I was wasting good rum and ruining a cigar that I'd spent like $10+ on, sometimes much more than that.

    I live quite a bit north of there but there's a tobacco store in Farmington, Maine. It's right off Route 2 - nice place. And they have a nice, humidity controlled, cigar section. Even better is when I can make it down to their store in Augusta - they have a walk-in humidor. It is as awesome as it sounds. I've actually considered turning a room in my house into one but I'm just not that picky.

    I do have a portable humidor and it's pretty good sized. I take it with me when I travel - it's with me right now. I've decided to stay in Buffalo another night but I have to change rooms as it seems this room is promised to a couple who have some sort of sentimental attachment to this room. I am probably going to stay another night as well - I've got my reasoning.

    But, yes, yes I do inhale cigar smoke. I know of some who do not. I don't really understand that. That would be like eating fat-free ice cream or drinking alcohol-free beer or decaffeinated coffee.

    As an aside (like that's ever bothered me before) the Cubans do make a good cigar but I really don't rank it up there with the 'best' - at least not those that I've tried. No, I've smoked them but that was just because they were illegal and then because I could. It was a matter of the experience and not the quality. They're not bad, not by any means, but they're not the best. I'm not sure if I could say what I think is the best (and often price is secondary, some of the more expensive taste like ass and you get more consistency with a major commercial label) but I can firmly assert that it is not any specific Cuban that I'm aware of. Too bad, too. I like Cuba. I wish I liked their cigars more.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  3. Re:Smoking or not, that's the question. by NotDrWho · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you dry out tobacco for smoking, the hippies will call it vile poison and try to have it banned.

    If you dry out marijuana for smoking, the hippies will call it a miracle-cure-all medicine and try to have it legalized.

    Silly hippies.

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  4. Re:Smoking or not, that's the question. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you look around you can find information on a number of health benefits to tobacco, many of which are legitimate.

    Listen to drinky. Nicotine is a really pretty great medicinal. It was Adderall before there was Big Pharma, and it's not a fluke that Native Americans made it a sacrament. The main problem with smoking is not the drug, but the delivery system.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  5. Re:Won't stop the moral hysteria by Anon-Admin · · Score: 4, Informative

    They contain,

    food grade vegetable glycerin
    food grade propylene glycol
    nicotine
    food grade Flavoring agents

    Some people will use lab grade which just designates the purity of the substance.

    Many point to the flavoring agents as the unknown in the mix. Most are simple essential oils extracted from the plant to provide flavoring. For example, a cool mint e-cig juice will contain a spearmint essential oil.

    In most cases, finding out what is in the juice is as simple as reading the list of ingredients on the bottle or the makers website.

    All of the ones I have seen stick to stuff that is consumed by people regularly. They dont want the risks of using something that is not food safe.

  6. You lie. by tacokill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    a great deal of street grade marijuna is very poor quality, may be pesticide or herbicide contaminated, and is very occasionally still laced with PCP in the US
    You lie. Not only is this not happening, your little tale doesn't even pass the smell test. Dealers selling bad marijuana are not lacing/spiking it with PCP. The dealers are in this to make money and buying PCP so they can sprinkle on their weed seems like a bad story from a 1982 DARE program speech. What's next, the kid who took LSD and thought he could fly?

    How about this instead: a great deal of street grade marijuana is sold because marijuana sells itself. Nothing else needs to be added.

  7. Re:Smoking or not, that's the question. by RollTRS · · Score: 5, Informative

    Spare me. "Medical marijuana" is in almost all cases nothing more than a fig leaf to cover people who want to get high

    Tell that to the families with children with epilepsy being successfully treated for seizures and other symptoms using cannabis oil. Your information is extremely prejudiced, and out of date. There are many people with debilitating diseases and conditions that cannabis can provide treatment or relief from.

    --
    "Perl is my favorite... It's like wiping your ass with unix." - Lord Ender
  8. Re:Smoking or not, that's the question. by areusche · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is so much fail in this I don't even know where to start.

    Marijuana has far more positive health effects than negative. In fact THC the chemical that gets you "high" is anti carcinogenic and has proven cancer fighting effects http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...

    "Purity" of street level product. Oy vey what a statement. You realize your fruits and vegetables have pesticides and herbicides on them as well right? Not to mention all of the nutrient "uptake" from fertilizers is in that plant. You are what you eat, includes plants as well. As for "purity" of the THC content, you either have cheap herb or dank green. Even a plant you grow yourself will have varying quality of THC. In the same way that your vegetables grown in the back yard won't have 100% the same nutritional facts as something grown on a properly fertilized farm.

    Finally, PCP laced marijuana? Are you kidding me? Why would any dealer bother lacing weed with PCP? You know PCP is insanely more expensive than marijuana right? Why would a dealer undercut his own prices lacing it with a drug as ridiculous as PCP? Stop quoting DARE literature from 1982.

    Want to know a secret about life long tobacco smokers? They're most likely cannabis smokers as well (that anti-carcinogenic effect).

  9. Re:Smoking or not, that's the question. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The reason smoking is so bad for you is that nicotine increases the risk of cancer throughout one's body due to the way it disrupts apoptosis.

    Do you have any idea how much nicotine S C Wright, J Zhong, H Zheng and J W Larrick had to give to lab rats to get to a level where apoptosis was sufficiently inhibited to promote tumor growth? And did you know that the tumors already had to be caused by something else, that wasn't nicotine?

    If nicotine had any medicinal properties, why is it not a pharmaceutical?

    You think there are no pharmaceuticals that are poisons? Don't be a fool. Shall we list the pharmaceuticals that also inhibit apoptosis? They're using caspase inhibitors right now to treat spinal cord injuries with drugs that have about 100 times more apoptosis inhibition than nicotine.

    Why do we use it as a pesticide?

    For that matter, why do we use pesticides on our food? Why do we design special GMOs just so we can use more pesticides on our food?

    Don't be so simple-minded. Nicotine at the levels casual users use does not cause cancer. It's the delivery system in smoking that causes cancer. And do you not know that there's arsenic in apples? Will you now start posting anti-apple FUD?

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.