Pipe Smoking Study, It Doesn't Look Good.

[oldmansmoking]

I gave up pipe smoking 30 years ago.
Then in 2013 I was diagnosed with terminal oesophageal cancer, I thought what the hell 6 months to live, go back to pipe and cigar smoking. I have not missed a day from smoking a pipe since.
My oncologist says I am a miracle.
Now you tell me is pipe and cigar smoking keeping me alive, or what!
In 1977 I was also struck by lightning and was fortunate to survive that.
Perhaps a charmed life! Or something important to do ahead!
Love my pipe and tobacco’s.

 

[brian64]

I came to pipes over 30 years ago while escaping cigarettes. I was absolutely addicted to cigarettes and could not go 20 minutes without one. It was the first thing I did in the morning and the last thing at the end of the day. Eventually I developed pre-cancerous oral lesions and I was told they were very likely related to having a cigarette burning constantly. After the surgery I was strongly advised to quit smoking cigarettes... by the pipe smoking M.D. treating me. That was 35 years ago. There is no doubt pipes saved me from cigarettes and helped to preserve my life. These days I smoke, at most, a bowl per day and when the weather is uncomfortable then 1-2 bowls a week, or, if I am in the grip of a virus or other crises, none at all. I can do that with pipes, go a day, or two, or three without losing my perspective.
This is my own anecdotal evidence and not the empirical statistics of a CDC study, but I offer it here.

Great story...and there have been many similar ones told here over the years.

And "empirical" essentially means based on experience, so when you have a pattern of such experiences it's empirical as far as I'm concerned.

 

[tuold]

I don’t want any of your statistics; I took your whole batch and lit my pipe with it.

Mark Twain

 

[brian64]

I gave up pipe smoking 30 years ago.
Then in 2013 I was diagnosed with terminal oesophageal cancer, I thought what the hell 6 months to live, go back to pipe and cigar smoking. I have not missed a day from smoking a pipe since.
My oncologist says I am a miracle.
Now you tell me is pipe and cigar smoking keeping me alive, or what!

Glad to hear it, and may your good fortune with the situation continue.

I'm guessing that because you were a pipe smoker 30 years prior to the diagnosis they automatically ascribed it as the cause...but I've learned enough about the history of the cancer-industrial-complex, and heard and read enough stories, to be of the opinion that they have no idea what caused it in a case such as yours.

I've only known one individual personally in my life who had lung cancer and she unfortunately died from it...and she was a life-long non-smoker...and no one in her family smoked either. Go figure.

 

[tozert]

Personally, I don't give a toss about the possible cancer implications of pipe and cigar smoking. I agree with many others here that we're burning leaf and exposing the soft tissues of our mouth with heat and smoke, and it WILL have a long term negative effect, even if we never get cancer. The only real concern I have with smoking is my teeth and gums. I visit my dentist every six months for a check-up and sonic cleaning because I have nice teeth and don't like the tobacco stains. Twenty years of pipe and cigar smoking is speeding up gum recession exposing the dentin, and I have to pay extra attention to the keep this area clean. It's a price I'm willing to pay for the enjoyment of my pipes and cigars.

I had a neighbor recently pass at 90, a life-long fag smoker (hand rollies) that finally got him, but not from cancer. My other neighbor, a non-smoker in his 50's, currently has brain cancer. I know A LOT of people my age that have cancer, or have passed on because of cancer, and have never smoked or excessively drank and lived a life of moderation. I've come to believe that there is no way to prevent cancer. The current statistics state that 38% of all people will get cancer at some point in their life. Some have really bad health lifestyles, others are super health conscious and still get it. When one looks at the news, it's hard NOT to conclude that every thing we do or partake of will someday give us cancer. It's fruitless to worry about it. We're all heading to the grave, so why not enjoy life to the full. If our pipes and cigars help us to enjoy that life, I say statistics and doctors and studies be damned.

 

[perdurabo]

Shocking news! Smoking may be detrimental to your health.

Here is some advice for reducing the risks of pipe smoking from Seattle Pipe Club. Reducing Risks-Seattle Pipe Club
The following may be the most useful bits from that link:

5) Reducing the risk of tongue burn and/or tongue and mouth cancer.

· A burn or scar from hot smoke is what you are trying to avoid. This can lead to cancer.

· Don’t leave the pipe clenched in your teeth in one position touching your tongue for a long time. Move the pipe around your mouth as you smoke.

· Sip your pipe like a fine wine, don’t draw heavily.

· Find a cool burning tobacco that you enjoy. Aromatic tobaccos tend to burn hotter than do English.

· Always drink while you smoke. This helps cool the mouth, quench the thirst from dry smoke, coat the mouth from hot smoke, and wash away any hot debris. Water, sodas, coffee, tea are fine. Don’t drink anything very hot though.

· However, sorry everyone, do not drink alcohol while you smoke. The combination of alcohol and smoke is not just a linear risk, but exponential. This is a huge mistake most smokers make. The alcohol destroys the flora and protective lining of mucus in the mouth. Then the hot smoke will directly come in contact with the unprotected mouth lining. Drink alcohol only after you smoke.

· Smoking depletes the body of vitamins A and C. Take up to 3000 mg of VC a day. Also take selenium and other antioxidants that will help buffer your body from free radicals, cancer and anti-aging.


6) Medical examination:


At least once a year, tell your physician you are a pipe smoker and would like to have your mouth and tongue examined. Schedule your teeth exams ~ 6 months after your physician’s and have your dentist give another exam. You now have two exams a year, by two different medical specialists.

Willfully giving A Doctor unasked info that can be used against you, isn’t Sound advice. Maybe 15 to 20 years ago but not now. Doctors are the eyes and ears for the Government and Insurance Conglomerate. Out. No more Click Bait extravaganza.

 

[seldom]

Willfully giving A Doctor unasked info that can be used against you, isn’t Sound advice. Maybe 15 to 20 years ago but not now. Doctors are the eyes and ears for the Government and Insurance Conglomerate. Out. No more Click Bait extravaganza.

Why do you capitalize words at random? In English proper nouns are typically capitalized and common nouns are not, unless the common noun begins a sentence. In some other languages all nouns are capitalized but you are typing in English. Furthermore you are inconsistent. You capitalize some common nouns but not others. Is this an artifact of your first language? What language is it? What are the rules for capitalization in your native language?

 

[brian64]

I believe There was a study Demonstrating statistically-significant occurances of Random capitalization by Nicotine addicts.

 

[David_Lawrence]

It may not be strictly logical but the overall likelihood of developing cancer has risen so high that I've chosen to take up pipe smoking whereas previously I had lamentably avoided it for those reasons.

Of course it would be more rational to say "If there's a significant chance for anyone to get cancer then you ought to do everything you can to minimise your chances" but 1 in 3 was awful enough—1 in 2? If it's come down to a coin toss then I wonder how worth it it even is to refrain from certain things your whole life.

I'm unmarried and childless so that's a factor too. I don't intend to smoke pipe tobacco my whole life (I only began just under a month ago) but right now at 34, it's something I've taken up.

 

[olkofri]

Why do you capitalize words at random? In English proper nouns are typically capitalized and common nouns are not, unless the common noun begins a sentence. In some other languages all nouns are capitalized but you are typing in English. Furthermore you are inconsistent. You capitalize some common nouns but not others. Is this an artifact of your first language? What language is it? What are the rules for capitalization in your native language?

True, but in English we can capitalise words to 'promote' the subject to a higher hierarchy to denote that it's something more complex, or personalised, or that it even has the properties of a living entity; in a way we give it a name and surname, which are always capitalised. E.g. the Deep State; not the same as a deep state.

That or he might be trying to defeat search engines.

 

[aguineapig]

If you actually read the entire study you'll notice that they control for numerous factors and than lump everything together to reach their averages.

The statistics in the abstract therefore at the average from 1-2 bowl a day, non inhaling smokers whose bowls last 30 minutes, all the way up to 10 bowl a day, inhaling, 1 hour plus duration per bowl, who are also drinking 5+ alcoholic beverages a day.

If you read the entire thing and compare it to the 1964 surgeon general's report, which concluded that very moderate pipe smoking was a negligible/acceptable level of risk, the statistics from the sub groups in this study who only smoked 1-2 bowls per day, didn't inhale, and and didn't consume alcohol on a daily basis, the risks are, again, tangible but fairly negligible.

the "safe level of alcohol" 1 drink per day for women/2 for men also increases head and neck cancer risks by 30-40 percent according to many studies. This is similar to pipe smokings impact on the same cancers amongst pipe smoking non regular drinkers, according to this study.

The cultural precedent has been set for acceptable risk, as regards moderate alcohol. A pipe or two a day is fairly analogous.

Read the whole study, and make an informed decision regarding the risk. There is some risk, but other people, often the same ones who berate and chastise you for smoking a pipe, almost certainly have habits that carry similar levels of risk.

It is also worth noting that a baby aspirin a day lowers head and neck cancer rates by 30%+, in addition to it's cardiovascular benefits. The effect is most pronounced in moderate drinkers/smokers. Something to think about for risk mitigation.

 

[olkofri]

...but I've learned enough about the history of the cancer-industrial-complex, and heard and read enough stories, to be of the opinion that they have no idea what caused it in a case such as yours.

I've only known one individual personally in my life who had lung cancer and she unfortunately died from it...and she was a life-long non-smoker...and no one in her family smoked either. Go figure.

Kind of the same here. I've seen the workings of the social engineering industry and the goals driving it, and the myriad humanistic hoaxes used to move it forward.

You have pharmacists telling people that the only way to quit smoking is through nicotine replacement "therapy", whose many products they have in stock and can conveniently provide. Funny, because my grandfather quit without any "therapy": he hurled the pack into the wastebasket and never bought another; that was that.

The one person I know to have died from lung (and bone) cancer was a non-smoker, and none of the members of his household smoked either. He also died because his doctor, faithful, methinks, to the Canadian Healthcare methodology to "act as a gatekeeper" keeping patients away from diagnostic procedures that cost the State money, kept jerking him off till the cancer was too advanced to do anything. There's the medical-state complex at work for you. They'd rather have you pay for painkillers than provide their infamous "free" healthcare.

 

[anotherbob]

If you actually read the entire study you'll notice that they control for numerous factors and than lump everything together to reach their averages.

Read the whole study, and make an informed decision regarding the risk. There is some risk, but other people, often the same ones who berate and chastise you for smoking a pipe, almost certainly have habits that carry similar levels of risk.

that makes me happy someone else actually read the whole thing instead of talking wild conjecture.

 

[aguineapig]

that makes me happy someone else actually read the whole thing instead of talking wild conjecture.

I read the whole thing years ago, along with everything else I could get my paws on, as someone who reached the conclusion of "whatever" levels of risk, before I ever used tobacco in any forum (to disarm the addict rationalization accusers).

For what it's worth I haven't used tobacco for 6 months either. I wish my body agreed with it, but I am dealing with adrenal issues, so had to stop all stimulants and alcohol. I have not had a single high adrenaline episode (a lot like a panic attack) since, and maybe in due time things will calm down and I'll be able to resume my pleasant solace. but no rush.

 

[aguineapig]

Just to be clear, here are some excerpts from the study authors;

"Comprehensively documenting the deleterious health effects of pipe smoking is important in countering efforts by the tobacco industry to promote pipes as a desirable alternative to cigarettes or cigars. The tobacco industry has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to create new markets by reviving interest in tobacco products that had appeared to have become obsolete, especially among youth and young adults. Two complementary approaches used to rekindle demand for products such as moist snuff, premium cigars, bidis, and hookah pipes are to minimize the adverse health consequences of these products by presenting them as a less hazardous alternative to cigarette smoking and to glamorize use by creating positive associations with celebrity, athleticism, success, and/or internationalism (47). "

"Our findings may help deter efforts by the tobacco industry to imply, directly or indirectly, as it has with smokeless tobacco (48,49) and low-yield cigarettes (50), that any tobacco product has negligible adverse health effects. "

They conducted a very interesting study, controlled for many variables, and then composited them all together to get the shock statistics they needed for what is essentially activism.

My advice is to read the entire thing, and TOTALLY DISREGARD the abstract and discussion. The rest is very good stuff for the informed pipe smoker.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Here's the shorthand. The less available and taboo a thing is the more desirable it becomes. Forbidden fruit logic. The antis and health reports only help fuel the tobacco industry inadvertently. Most of us knew of the risks but did it anyway for one reason or another. I started buying pipes at a drugstore in '91 because of the redhead that worked there.?

 

[timelord]

My Dad - a lifelong cigarette smoker - died of several cancers in 2001; none of them related to lungs, throat or other obvious smoking related ones. When my cigarette smoking brother went to his GP for an annual checkup his doctor suggested that he stopped smoking based on Dad's then recent death.

My brother then asked if that given my Dad had also been an observer at the Bikini Atoll and Woomera nuclear tests and had worked on the UK nuclear weapons V-Bomber programme during the 50's and 60's and continued working with military aircraft until he retired the Doctor might like to reconsider his comments. He did reluctantly agree that in Dads case these were probably the more likely causes.

 

[perdurabo]

Why do you capitalize words at random? In English proper nouns are typically capitalized and common nouns are not, unless the common noun begins a sentence. In some other languages all nouns are capitalized but you are typing in English. Furthermore you are inconsistent. You capitalize some common nouns but not others. Is this an artifact of your first language? What language is it? What are the rules for capitalization in your native language?

It’s actually the iPhone <——(typed in lower case but the keyboard auto capitalized “Phone”) keyboard. If you are in need of a job, and want to be hired as my secretary to run “iPhone” interference for me on Mechanics<——(there did it again) you’re welcome to. Pm me and I’ll set up an interview.??

 

[brian64]

They conducted a very interesting study, controlled for many variables, and then composited them all together to get the shock statistics they needed for what is essentially activism.

That's a common M.O. for any number of issues that feign to use science as the basis for social/political activism.

My advice is to read the entire thing, and TOTALLY DISREGARD the abstract and discussion.

It may help to think of the abstract and discussion as the Adam Schiff version of the actual study. (sorry, couldn't resist)

 

[olkofri]

Just to be clear, here are some excerpts from the study authors;

"Comprehensively documenting the deleterious health effects of pipe smoking is important in countering efforts by the tobacco industry to promote pipes as a desirable alternative to cigarettes or cigars. The tobacco industry has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to create new markets by reviving interest in tobacco products that had appeared to have become obsolete, especially among youth and young adults. Two complementary approaches used to rekindle demand for products such as moist snuff, premium cigars, bidis, and hookah pipes are to minimize the adverse health consequences of these products by presenting them as a less hazardous alternative to cigarette smoking and to glamorize use by creating positive associations with celebrity, athleticism, success, and/or internationalism (47). "

"Our findings may help deter efforts by the tobacco industry to imply, directly or indirectly, as it has with smokeless tobacco (48,49) and low-yield cigarettes (50), that any tobacco product has negligible adverse health effects. "

They conducted a very interesting study, controlled for many variables, and then composited them all together to get the shock statistics they needed for what is essentially activism.

My advice is to read the entire thing, and TOTALLY DISREGARD the abstract and discussion. The rest is very good stuff for the informed pipe smoker.

This is essentially why I was so dismissive about this (and as a rule now, any other) study. I wasn't trying to be mean to the OP or be my usual curmudgeonly self. It's activism disguised as science. Nothing more.

They are clearly stating that they're at war against the tobacco industry and their 'study' is a leave-no-stone-unturned offensive against said industry. All in the interest of saving the children of course.

Their bottom line is always the same: "ALL forms of tobacco are evil and must be eliminated from the face of the Earth!" They can be safely ignored (to a point: because one of the reasons these 'studies' are funded and conducted is to promote more and more bans).