Pipe Smoking Study, It Doesn't Look Good.

[frozenchurchwarden]

The really depressing thing here is if they had actually done their job they might have provided some useful information to Pipe Smokers.

 

[olkofri]

The really depressing thing here is if they had actually done their job they might have provided some useful information to Pipe Smokers.

Indeed, but that is the sad state of science nowadays: you just don't piss off your grant donor and/or risk your university tenure by reporting conclusions they won't like, even if they're the truth.

Instead the researchers and media do this:

 

[cortezattic]

"[W]e are all diseas’d;
And, with our surfeiting and wanton hours
Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
And we must bleed for it..." (2 King Henry IV, Act 4:1, 62-64)

 

[aguineapig]

That bit about pipe smokers living longer got debunked in a later study. It's not just the Nic that'll kill you, it's all the byproducts of combustion. Bummer.

Can you link me to that? I would love to read it. Measuring longevity can be tricky, and one explanation or partial explanation would be as time post 1964 report elapsed, and the perception of smokings incompatibility with a "healthy lifestyle" grew, smokers, even pipe/cigar smokers either quit or grew despondent and more lax about their health in other ways. This is called the "unhealthy user bias". I don't necessarily believe it totally, but I think it would be a factor.

 

[aguineapig]

The really depressing thing here is if they had actually done their job they might have provided some useful information to Pipe Smokers.

They did. Reading the different tables in the study is very interesting.

Basically it confirms what anyone with any sense already knew-- that it's true that the more you smoke, the more you risk certain health outcomes, and the less you smoke, the less your risk. At the lowest/most moderate end of their control in the study, the risks are (to me) pretty acceptable. I kept alcohol in check (enjoyed a beer more evenings than not, still), and take a baby aspirin a day, and didn't worry about it.

 

[sablebrush52]

Can you link me to that? I would love to read it. Measuring longevity can be tricky, and one explanation or partial explanation would be as time post 1964 report elapsed, and the perception of smokings incompatibility with a "healthy lifestyle" grew, smokers, even pipe/cigar smokers either quit or grew despondent and more lax about their health in other ways. This is called the "unhealthy user bias". I don't necessarily believe it totally, but I think it would be a factor.

I can't recall the article as it's been a couple of decades since I read it, but I seem to recall it was from the late 1970's or early '80's.
As you know, there are lies, damned lies, and then statistics. All of this stuff is statistics. Find the unit of measurement that supports what you want to support.

 

[captaincalabash]

As I remember quoted from a doctor's summary of statistics concerning mostly cigarette smoking:
"Only 50% of smokers get cancer. Of all cancer patients, only 10% ever smoked."

 

[redglow]

98% of all pipe smokers enjoy life more than non pipe smoking people.

 

[newbroom]

I'm 71, and have been a tobacco user most of my life. When I started pipes, I had been retired a year and a non smoker for about 5.
I got very sick and depressed and stressed out and went back to tobacco. Within about 2 months I decided I didn't want to inhale burnt paper so I went to Walgreens and got a Legend.
If anything, pipe smoking has enhanced the quality of my life.
Thankfullly, I only inhaled my 'new' Legend for about a month before I discovered what it's all about right here in these forums.

 

[derhammer]

It's all fine.


“Ma flesche (asseure toy) n’espargnera personne

Vous danserez trestout ce balet, que je sonnne


My arrow (I promise you) spares no one

You will all dance the ballet of which I sing”

 

[anotherbob]

the conclusion of the study is "this is not a safe alternative to cigarettes" which is a wonderfully meaningless statement. You can apply it to anything, because nothing is safe. And that includes pipes, for one you could trip and push the stem right down your throat, that would be dangerous. Though what is also true is that risk isn't about being safe it's about weighing the risks against the benefits. And no study can actually show you that. You need a bunch of studies about the same thing and you need a bunch of studies about other dangerous things (everything is dangerous). For example doubling the risk of type of cancer sounds super scary unless it's a cancer that almost no one ever gets and then not so scary sounding is it? The study said 60 some percent of the participants where still alive. Wow almost half died, well how many of them died right around the average life expectancy? The thing which should really help understand the point of this study is that the people conducting it see smoking as something that doesn't carry benefits. Like what color shoes one wears. In that light the risk is too great. When one considers the significant quality of life issues that nicotine and pipe smoking carry the risks become minimal. Medical science is finally starting to turn around on that one. In about ten years they'll be encouraging nicotine as a therapy just not in the form of cigarettes.
Funny note about why studies have to be aggregated as in compiling many studies together and seeing what trends prevail. There have been many studies like this one on cigarette smokers. Using similar methods as this study. Now most of those studies said what we all have heard cigarettes are really not good for you and cigarette smokers are more likely to die of several different disease then nonsmokers. However one study of a hundred smokers and one hundred nonsmokers had the opposite results. The smokers had a lower disease and mortality rate then the nonsmokers in the study. Now that doesn't mean cigarettes are safe it just means that a single study doesn't proof anything. Because once you put the data from that study into the pool with all the other studies the conclusion was still smoking cigarettes is clearly not that great for you. And yeah pipe smoking carries risks but they're outweighed by the benefits it carries too. Sure it might kill you (something will get you eventually) however it's probably going to be pretty close to the time you'd have died anyways if you didn't smoke at all. Unlike cigs which can take decades off of ones life and cause serious quality of life issues before that happens.

 

[olkofri]

Re: the circa 1965 study that reported cigar and pipe smokers live longer, I've always wondered that lengthier existences had more to do with the attitude towards life than with tobacco: a pipe makes one relax, become instrospective, reflective, and contemplative (no wonder socialists would hate it: as man becomes introspective and contemplative, he might end up thinking about God, and they can't have that, can they?); whereas cigarette smokers tend to be into tobacco for the nicotine: high-strung, high-stress people—already on the way to heart disease even before they met Lady N.

I've this theory that you can tell the character of a man by the way he smokes his pipe: I'm an impatient, nervous type --> you can tell that from my very fast cadence. Stress is more likely to do me in (and give me cancer) than tobacco. Maybe I should conduct a study on that. Any grant donors?

 

[anotherbob]

side note olkofri reminded me of. When I was in school during the cancer section of pathology, one of the types of cancer was a bladder cancer that only cigarette smokers and people who worked in factories that used a specific industrial solvent got. I then looked up that solvent under the list of cigarette additives and like I suspected it was on the list. Also the amount of carbon monoxide in cigarettes would mess up anyones heart no matter how chill or low strung they are. It binds to the red blood cells better then oxygen does essentially lowering the percentage of oxygen in the blood dramatically, hence heart must work harder with less fuel. Not a good combo

 

[Ctbill]

Enjoying reading all the comments and perspectives.
I guess I’m screwed...
Copenhagen user for 30 years, but switched to Swedish snus... Occasional cigar smoker...
Pipe smoker (3-4 a week)
Motorcycle rider!
Ugh...
(But I really enjoy life!)
And work out 4 times a week - lift & cardio.
I’ll die from something, eventually, sooner or later. Probably choke on a piece of kale, or fall down my steps, or get hit by a texting teenager...

 

[olkofri]

Enjoying reading all the comments and perspectives.
I guess I’m screwed...
Copenhagen user for 30 years, but switched to Swedish snus... Occasional cigar smoker...
Pipe smoker (3-4 a week)
Motorcycle rider!
Ugh...
(But I really enjoy life!)
And work out 4 times a week - lift & cardio.
I’ll die from something, eventually, sooner or later. Probably choke on a piece of kale, or fall down my steps, or get hit by a texting teenager...

Or maybe peacefully in your bed, surrounded by loved ones, after a fruitful life and after enjoying one last bowl of your favourite blend. puf

 

[Ctbill]

Or maybe peacefully in your bed, surrounded by loved ones, after a fruitful life and after enjoying one last bowl of your favourite blend. puf

I’ll take that version as well!
??

 

[derhammer]

no wonder socialists would hate it: as man becomes introspective and contemplative, he might end up thinking about God, and they can't have that, can they?

I second this. Such true words

 

[derhammer]

Motorcycle rider!

Hey that's pretty awesome, I ride as well. Now I'm wondering how many pipe smokers also rides

 

[youdancer]

"a pipe makes one relax, become instrospective, reflective, and contemplative (no wonder socialists would hate it: as man becomes introspective and contemplative, he might end up thinking about God, and they can't have that, can they?"

Weird inference here - why would introspection lead to thoughts of God alone and not of utopias or political philosophy?
Let's not forget not only was Joe Stalin a pipe smoker (possibly not the best socialist in truth,) but Tony Benn, a member of parliament for almost 50 years, a fine writer and highly principled socialist was voted 'pipe smoker of the year' in 1992.
Socialism and pipe smoking seem like they were made for each other, unlike neoliberalism and pipe smoking.

 

[lawdawg]

Professor Brad Rodu, who holds an endowed chair in cancer research / tobacco harm research at University of Louisville, ripped apart some of these recent studies and demonstrated, using their own statistics, that moderate pipe and/or cigar smoking poses only a minimally increased health risk as compared to non-smokers.

I'm under no illusions about smoking - I think we all know its harmful. The question is, to what extent is it harmful? How harmful? I suspect the answer is that on the average, smoking a few pipes a day is not very harmful, and certainly not as harmful as these FDA et al. studies are showing. The powers that be, including the WHO, have decided that smoking is to be eradicated, and tobacco shall be verboten, so they pile on the fear-mongering and disinformation. It would be nice if we could have some honest, straight-forward information, but that probably wouldn't serve the purpose of those providing most of this information.