In light of my thread about pipes, I have gone looking for data on risks associated with smoking them, and am finding it extremely difficult to unearth any data on the correlation of cancer and low frequency smoking.

I have always depended on personal instinct and my insurance evaluation to suggest that the little amount I actually smoke is not enough to seriously raise my risks.

But am I just being naively optimistic?

All the material I can find talks about habitual smoking, and even the forum members on here who have pipe experience seem to talk in terms that imply more frequent use than I have ever engaged in.

So does anyone on here know, or can anyone on here point me to, something objective that measures the risks as they correspond with different levels of smoking?

Turn the argument on its head….

How much additional risk/early death/illness would you accept for the occasional enjoyment of smoking?

You can’t look at the data taken at population level and apply it to yourself.

You kind of can for aspects of a behaviour like smoking in terms of effects that are gradual and attritional. But cancer is in binary you get it or you don’t.

Theres not a safe quantity of fags after which you’re at risk in the same way that theres not a safe number of times to pull the trigger in a game of russian roulette. On average three pulls of the trigger kills you but that doesn’t mean its safe enough to pull it twice.

All of the cigarettes you smoke contribute cumulatively to symptoms like heart disease or stroke or diabetes. Only one results in cancer – but which one? Could be one of the first, could be one of the last.

Theres not a safe quantity of fags after which you’re at risk in the same way that theres not a safe number of times to pull the trigger in a game of russian roulette. All of the cigarettes you smoke contribute cumulatively to symptoms like heart disease or stroke or diabetes. Only one results in cancer – but which one? Could be one of the first, could be one of the last.

Is it the same for bacon sandwiches? I dont have a 30 a day habit but maybe eat 3 a week..

Is it the same for bacon sandwiches?

Just about everything else is the same as bacon sandwiches – smoking is quite unique.

Smoking is actually the reason health risks are dealt with so poorly in the press and by public policy makers – the recent bacon bullshit in the news is a perfect example of that. When the link was first discovered between tobacco and lung cancer it was pretty sensational news. Fags were pretty much the sole cause of those cancers (especially at a time when most people smoked a lot). It made for very easy science reporting because one risk of one disease had one cause and you could do one thing (stop smoking) to prevent it.

With other potential carcinogens and other potential cancers its never as clear cut. ‘Pancreatic cancer’ as a for-instance is though to be at least four different conditions that are all given the same name, each of those might have range of potential causes all of which interact with each other. But with any news about potential causes or relationships with cancer the press will still discuss each of those factors as if they are as defined, isolated and relatable as tobacco and cancer.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XewVicFzRxw[/video]

Question regarding smoking and the smoking ban. Do you think the smoking ban will have any affect of disease that smokers get?

Just curious as my da, who spent most of his days in smokey pubs needs to use and inhalers these days, never smoked a cigarette in his life. The doctors actually asked him who much he smoked years ago.

Anyhow, not like the affects of passive smoking need any illustration…

But the question is, it’s clear passive smoking has an affect on non smokers, do you think it also has an effect on smokers? ie, in the future will there be a difference in the rates of disease among life time smokers, say from 30 years ago, and 30 years in the future?

(not this isn;t any naive hope that I can continue smoking as the ban makes it a bit safer, I’m well aware both are stupid.) But it does strike me that sitting in smoky rooms all days as opposed to popping outdoors for a cigarette, could have possibly slightly reduced risk (on average)?

Maccruskin is right, there are over 200 types of cancer so far id’d, all with various causes

But there aren’t many where smoking won’t be a risk multiplier of some sort.

In certain cancers smoking is known to produce a very specific molecular signature in the way it mutates DNA.

Your own genetics play a big role in what type of cancers you are likely to develop, combined with environmental factors, like diet, air pollution, alcohol intake and smoking etc it’s very hard to say what the % increase of occasionally smoking a pipe will be for you.

Comparisons are hard to make vs fags, im going to assume the average fag smoker inbibes more often than pipe smokers anyway?
T
This review concludes that pipe is better than fags apart from in oesophogeal cancers.

http://m.jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/96/11/853.full

Different levels of smoking will have different effects
Review here
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2865193/#!po=45.6522

Without sequencing your genome, analysing your diet, drinking, smoking habits etc it’s very hard to put a number on it

Less is better, none is best

And yes passive smoking causes cancer, probably slightly different mechanism as different chemicals released at the tip than inhaled thru the filter