Quitting Smoking Causes Cancer?

[ahwahoo2006]

Quitters finish first


Health warning: giving up smoking can kill

Marc Abrahams
Tuesday October 16, 2007
The Guardian


The danger of cigarettes is mostly not in smoking them, argues a study by three doctors at the KS Hegde Medical Academy in Mangalore, India. Or, put another way: the danger comes from not smoking. Figuratively blowing smoke in the face of conventional wisdom, the study asks: "Are lung cancers triggered by stopping smoking?"
Arunachalam Kumar, Kasaragod Mallya and Jairaj Kumar take little for granted. They begin: "The clinically high correlation between smoking and carcinoma of the lungs has been the focal point in societal campaigns against the habit and the tobacco lobby." But their experience with patients suggests to them a different, seldom-told story. "We are struck by the more than casual relationship between the appearance of lung cancer and an abrupt and recent cessation of the smoking habit in many, if not most, cases."

Experience is their guide, numerically speaking. Of the 312 lung cancer patients they treated during a four-year period, 182 had recently quit smoking. The report goes into detail. "Each had been addicted to the habit no less than 25 years, smoking in excess of 20 sticks a day. The striking direct statistical correlation between cessation of smoking to the development of lung malignancies, more than 60% plus, is too glaring to be dismissed as coincidental."

One might quibble about this statistic - 182 cases out of 312 is 58%. In technical terms, one could accurately describe that as less than 60% minus. But it's still a startling number.

Kumar, Mallya and Kumar sketch out a possible explanation of what happens. There is, they surmise, a biological mechanism that protects smokers against cancer, that gets exercised and strengthened by years of diligent, heavy smoking. As in habitual marathon running, the body becomes accustomed to suffering grievous damage, and develops habitual ways to fix up whatever breaks down. The smoker's body becomes a sort of lean, puffing, self-damaging-yet-self-repairing machine.

But when a smoker gives up that regular regimen, the body cannot adjust. "It is our premise," say the doctors, "that a surge and spurt in re-activation of bodily healing and repair mechanisms of chronic smoke-damaged respiratory epithelia is induced and spurred by an abrupt discontinuation of habit, goes awry, triggering uncontrolled cell division and tumor genesis."

Things go downhill from there, in theory. The study appears in the journal Medical Hypotheses. In two pages, Kumar, Mallya and Kumar bleaken the already dire picture that research has painted about smoking cessation. The medically documented risks incurred by anyone who gives up cigarettes are well known. Depression, weight gain, irritability - these cruel fates have been written about time and again. Now add to them the risk of cancer, and the case against the case against smoking becomes even more persuasive.

At the very end of their paper, Kumar, Mallya and Kumar sum up their new view of things. "No doubt," they write, "tobacco kills too many. Or does it?"


http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/s...2191509,00.html

[chinamon]

nobody likes a quitter.

[guyt]

Does anyone else think it ironic or just me?

[Zildjian]

"So i would always say to my dad, 'Dad, why dont you just quit drinking' And he would look at me in the eye and say 'Because Im not a quitter!!'" -John Leguizamo

[thegreengoblin707]

I know you guys are just playing around. Nevertheless, I'll go ahead and beat a dead horse. A study like this is an insult to a person's intelligence. I hate it when the news agency will take a bogus, random study and make news of it just to get a kick. There all thousands of "studies" conducted everyday. Many of them die away because they cannot stand repeated, reliable, rigorous clinical / basic science testing. The few that survive turn into science journal papers or PhD thesis. Don't pay attention to these jokers who clearly have an agenda. They aren't worth your time.

[MechAnt]

This is not an experiment. This is an observational study. A case study.

[KLD]

He makes it out that quitting smoking will cause cancer. No, If your a dire addict you will possibly get depressed and gain weight, those are what triggers cancer not the lack of chemicals in your lungs. If you quit smoking and don't start gorging yourself and don't go all emo, you are obviously better off. 5 bucks says this guy was payed by a cig company to make this! lol

[philipn376]

Quiting doesn't cause cancer, being emo does

[oolatec]

I know you guys are just playing around. Nevertheless, I'll go ahead and beat a dead horse. A study like this is an insult to a person's intelligence. I hate it when the news agency will take a bogus, random study and make news of it just to get a kick. There all thousands of "studies" conducted everyday. Many of them die away because they cannot stand repeated, reliable, rigorous clinical / basic science testing. The few that survive turn into science journal papers or PhD thesis. Don't pay attention to these jokers who clearly have an agenda. They aren't worth your time.

That's the Guardian for ya.

[mrmonk7663]

Ok, let's imagine this story has some real world relevance and is not just some spoof. The "doctors" claimed that a sudden cessation of smoking is the trigger for cancer....Ok, no one can argue that smoking is not good for you, everyone knows it is not...but if the sudden cessation of smoking triggered cancer, then logically it would make sense that a gradual drawn out reduction and decline in smoking by an individual should allow the body to safely make the proper changes and adjustments without reaching this state of "caner shock." So this study needs to be followed up with a study of individuals who gradually quit smoking. Then they could compare the number of individuals who devleoped cancer after the gradual quit vs. those who quit suddenly. Then maybe we would have some more useful information, because as everyone knows, anyone can look at a cloud and see whatever they want, just as anyone can look at statistics and % and see whatever they want. :-)

[thegreengoblin707]

Unless someone reaches a point where his lungs are severeley and irreversibly damaged, the benefit of quitting and stopping ongoing damage is much much greater than the body's mechanisms to adapt to carcinogens. If someone quits earlier, the lungs can actually recover and repair damaged cells. The body is amazing but its mechanisms do have limits. I smoke occasionally and I realize that I'm taking my chances. Edited October 19, 2007 by thegreengoblin707

[Allia22]

Quitting doesn't cause cancer, being emo does

ROFL