From Simon: “In the interest of fairness and to reveal my own biases, I am an unapologetic tobacco user.”
I know this article is going to be completely politically incorrect, but I’ve always had a problem with the demonization of completely legal and in some ways beneficial substances. I’ve always known that if everyone I was exposed to in society and the media was telling me the same thing, they were most likely lying. And ninety nine percent of the time I’ve been right. Amid the growing absurdity and increasingly hysterical pogroms against substances such as tobacco, alcohol, trans fats, high fructose corn syrup and many others, modern scientific studies are refuting the ill-informed and ignorant prejudices against many of these substances.
Anyone remember the hubbub about coconut oil a few years back? What happened was a couple of nutritional busybodies from The Center for Science in the Public Interest started a propaganda campaign against coconut oil, blaming it for everything from increased obesity rates to increased risk of heart disease. Thing about it was, coconut oil is what gives movie theatre popcorn its unique aroma and flavor. It’s also a natural preservative; popcorn popped in a large popper like you find in movie theaters will stay fresh all night. The FDA moved to ban the oil but public outcry stopped them in their tracks. So what’s the verdict now? Coconut oil has become the darling of the health food and natural remedies set, a pretty liberal bunch is there ever was one. Well, I think the same thing is about to happen with tobacco.
I just happened to run across this article in Associated Content from Yahoo. From “The Smoker’s Paradox“ by Juniper Russo:
Thanks to Surgeon General’s Warning labels, public smoking bans, strict regulation of advertising, excise taxes, and public service messages, nearly everyone in America is fully aware of the many health risks associated with cigarette smoking Ongoing research has continuously proven smoking causes lung dysfunction, cancer, SIDS, heart disease, birth defects, preterm birth and other serious health problems. Knowing this, the idea that cigarette smoking may offer health benefits may seem utterly absurd.
Now why would such an assumption be totally absurd? Tobacco has been used in this country for hundreds of years. Any time I hear a statement like “ongoing research has continuously proven,” I know good and damned well that nothing has been proven.
However, cigarette smoking has been confirmed to provide numerous benefits to the health of smokers. Surprisingly, the tobacco plant appears to have more to offer our bodies than a guarantee of certain death. Although the health benefits of smoking are far outweighed by the many very dire risks, tobacco may provide alternative relief or prevention for some diseases in certain individuals.
After this statement, I can tell the tone this article is going to take. Here is a writer who has stumbled across some facts that just don’t fit in with their worldview. The phrase “many very dire risks” is a bit of overkill to counteract the health benefits being reported on.
The most fascinating and widely recognized health benefit of smoking is its ability to seemingly alleviate symptoms of mental illnesses, including anxiety and schizophrenia. According to an article published in 1995 in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, schizophrenics have much higher smoking rates than people with other mental illnesses, and appear to use it as a method of self-medicating. The article postulates that nicotine found in cigarettes reduces psychiatric, cognitive, sensory, and physical effects of schizophrenia, and also provides relief of common side effects from antipsychotic drugs.
I’ve seen this personally. When I was much younger I worked for an AC and refrigeration company. One of our customers was an assisted care facility for people with schizophrenia and mental illness. Everyone there smoked, and I mean everyone.
The treatment of schizophrenia isn’t the only positive effect that nicotine has on the brain. A series of very interesting studies from multiple academic sources confirms that the risk of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease is surprisingly higher in non-smokers than in smokers. Doctor Laura Fratiglioni of Huddinge University Hospital in Sweden states, ‘Cigarette smokers are 50% less likely to have PD or AD than are age- and gender-matched nonsmokers […] cigarette smoking exerts an undefined biologic neuroprotective influence against the development of PD and AD.’
The first time I heard this, I think I was listening to Rush Limbaugh (that was a while ago before his being a tool for the neocons got to be more than I could bear). He said something to the effect of, “if it weren’t so politically incorrect, doctors would prescribe cigarettes at age sixty.”
The University of Melbourne confirmed the claims made by many smokers that tobacco itself is a strong appetite suppressant, and many use it to self-treat compulsive overeating disorders or obesity. Many smokers experience weight loss and decreased appetite after they begin smoking, and the Melbourne study found similar results in lab rats and mice exposed to cigarette smoke. While tobacco-influenced pharmaceuticals may at some point be an available option to treat obesity, smoking as a self-treatment is very ill-advised, since the negative effects of tobacco and obesity tend to compound and create interrelated conditions.
After my divorce while I wasn’t obese, I was carrying around about fifty extra pounds. I smoked when I was younger and in the service, but I quit when I got out. After the divorce, I really couldn’t think of any good reasons not to so I started smoking again. Whether the change in my diet or the smoking is the reason, I lost those fifty pounds within eight months.
Cigarette smoking has also been linked to a decrease in risk of certain inflammatory disorders, since nicotine itself appears to be an anti-inflammatory agent. The department of gastroenterology at the University Hospital of Wales conducted a number of in-vitro studies to confirm and explain the decreased risk in ulcerative colitis (a potentially severe digestive disorder) in individuals who smoke cigarettes.
I was kind of wondering why I never got heartburn again after I started back smoking.
Perhaps most shockingly, tobacco smoke’s anti-inflammatory effects may actually provide some benefits to children who are exposed to secondhand smoke. While this is certainly not worth at-home experimentation, one astonishing study conducted in Sweden observed two generations of Swedish children and found that the children of smokers had lower rates of allergic rhinitis, allergic asthma, atopic eczema, and food allergies. The studied groups included 6909 adults and 4472 children, and the findings remained consistent, even when adjusted to reflect other variables.
What? Second hand smoke is good for the kiddies? How the hell can that be when we are bombarded with news stories, newspaper and magazine articles and every other media story imaginable that just being in the general vicinity of someone who smokes will lead to an agonizing, completely preventable death?
It occurs to me that we’ve been fed a complete line of bullshit. I’m not going to quote any more from Juniper Russo’s article, it predictably falls into a warning to all of us children that we shouldn’t take the benefits seriously, after all smoking is “vewy, vewy bad“ (my words not hers?, his? What kind of name is Juniper?) and we shouldn’t even think getting near any tobacco, much less think about consuming some. Before all you cigarette haters out there start piling on, let me recount a little story.
I grew up around smokers. Mother (but not father, he had quit before I was born.), grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles and my parent’s friends. I know for a fact that my mother smoked throughout both mine and my sister’s pregnancies and from what I can tell; (I was ten pounds eight ounces when born, my sister was seven pounds six) there were no ill effects except maybe making me a little more susceptible to smoking when older. The only incidence where anyone had any adverse effects was my maternal grandmother. And, the effects were only incidental. My maternal grandmother smoked two packs a day of Winston’s from the time she was fourteen years old until her death. When she was seventy five years old, my mother talked her into going in for a chest x-ray. The doctors found a spot on her lung about the size of a dime. Again, my mother talked her into having surgery to have the spot removed; two weeks later, she was dead. Not from any lung cancer, not from the smoking, my grandmother had no cardiovascular disease, no coronary heart disease; she died from blood clots the surgery she should have never had released into her bloodstream. The way I figure it, she probably would have lived at least ten more years if she hadn’t listened to my stupid ass mother. Stupid people put their faith in institutionalized medicine, I don’t.
The evidence is starting to accumulate that tobacco consumption is not bad for you, contrary to all the media and governmental hysteria over the last five decades. The link from the first of this paragraph lists twenty three separate scientific studies that present evidence to back up my premise. There’s even a doctor who wrote a book titled The Health Benefits of Tobacco: A Smoker’s Paradox, which I highly recommend.
I know I’m going to get the question, “So Simon, why did you write this when you know that you’re going to get all kinds of knee-jerk, anti-smoker reaction to your article?” Well, my answer is this. When a nanny society or government starts telling me what’s good for me against my better instincts and then takes it upon itself to force me to change my behavior, it becomes a personal matter to prove them wrong. I just can’t sit back and take it; bring on the anti-smokers, the second hand smoke fearers and anyone else who wants to tell me what I can do with my life…with faulty evidence to back up their positions.
And also, anyone who knows the truth about nutrition and vitamin supplements knows that taken properly, vitamins D3, non acid C, CoQ10 and resveratrol will nearly completely eliminate the chance that you might get cancer.
Read this study to see what really WILL get you in the end…
I’ve got the truth on my side…
{ 46 comments… read them below or add one }
Crack will also make you lose weight, and heroin will reduce anxiety and reverse hypertension. Not good ideas, though.
As a health care worker, I believe smoking is bad not because of the “education campaigns” but because of what I have seen first-hand. I have taken care of people needing open-heart surgery who clearly ate government-recommended “healthy” diet and I have gone over to the Atkins-paleo way of thinking about diet. However, the evils of smoking are every bit as bad as the experts say. I have an almost 100% track record in IDing smokers at work based on the sound of their lungs, and smokers’ veins are almost always shrivelled and brittle.
It doesn’t matter whether your personality is a factor in whether you develop cancer. Cancer is only one problem with smoking. It ages you prematurely and sucks the vitality out of your tissues.
I’ll try to keep your article in mind as I listen to my chest rattle when I try to go to sleep in a bit. Quitting nicotine is on my short list of things to do in the near future.
E-cigarettes that vaporize pure liquid nicotine offer all of the beneficial effects without the downsides of cancer and lung disease.
Really? Are you this anti-science about everything, or just things you’re addicted to?
wrt to coconut oil, you start with four links.
Two of them are to “coconutoil.com”. It describes its mission as “research on coconut oil’s health benefits” indicating that the result of the study (there’s a benefit!) has been decided even before any research is complete.
And the other two are to “organic” and “natural” food sites, themes which have distinctly cultish traits.
I’m sure these sources will provide me with a LOT of unbiased scientific analysis.
tl:dr
As a long term smoker the effects have been thus on me, note that the symptoms eventually disappear after several months, unlike what the disinformation spread that it will “ruin your life”:
-weakens my singing voice/vocals, prolonged smoking takes several months for it to recover back to full strength.
-shortness of breath. Gulping for air after only going up a small fleet of stairs
-occasional heart palpitations
-headaches
-poor concentration
-”hot/cold” flashes
-less boner power
-occasional dizziness
-inability to headbang!
Benefits:
-feels good
-tastes awesome
-looks badass
-wild/sluty chicks dig it
-can be used to strike up conversations with fellow smokers and other social perks
-great excuses for work breaks
Overall, it’s a fun short term habit, but usually develops into a long term habit because it’s simply fun! If you only smoke for a brief period, you won’t suffer any of the nasty effects like shortness of breath, so remain a social smoker.
Alright I did read it. And I can say that minimal critical thought of depth was put into this work. Whatever supposed “health benefits” you will be getting from smoking will be utterly useless when you start realizing how much it is messing up your lungs and circulation. Spoken from experience of corse. The dangers of smoking aren’t that exaggerated whatsoever. And “danger” isn’t the right word to use here, smoking is simply unhealthy, it may not kill you, but it won’t make life any better.
Bottom line, have a cigar on your birthday, and keep it at that.
I don’t think anyone can deny there are SOME benefits to smoking (or at least perceived benefits). Even cutting has its benefits in the mind of the person holding the razor blade.
Perhaps those benefits would be amplified if cigarettes were made without all the ingredients commonly found in household cleaning solutions and whatnot.
Take it a step farther… modern day cigarettes are full of chemicals and other garbage. I’m guessing this correlates with the rise of health problems seemingly related to smoking.
Pure tobacco isn’t nearly as toxic and has been used by mankind for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Before the modern ciggarette we didn’t have nearly as much related health problems.
Buy fresh, roll ur own.
Non-smokers tend to find the smell of smoke from cigarettes very annoying, as if someone is stabbing a knife into their lungs or nose. However, the smell of cigars or pipes does not give the same effect. Burnt tobacco by itself is not as annoying as cigarettes.
@MeMyselfI
Much like modern foods, which are manufactured in similar ways!
The trouble is people’s binary “This is GOOD. This is BAD” type of thinking. Alot of things in life are “double-edged”. Good for some things. Bad for others.
I personally quit smoking when it had a negative imapct on my well-being, but I can’t deny that some smokers are remarkably old and in perfectly good health.
@Workshy Joe–
It’s true that a lot of people defy the trend and wind up living perfectly happy, smoke-filled lives. (My own paternal great-grandfather was a 400-pound German opera singer and notorious degenerate who slept with dozens, if not hundreds, of women, drank to excess, and smoked every day of his life, but who died at the age of 80 — ten years after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer).
In statistics, we call it the “man-who phenomenon.” As in, “Well, I know a man who lived to be 80 despite smoking his whole life.” The exception doesn’t disprove the rule. It’s just important to remember that, statistically, the “rule” is really just a trend — true for most people under most circumstances most of the time.
Maybe tobacco is all that and a bag of jizz (yeah right).
Still, two points.
a)That smell is fucking annoying for non-smokers.
b)The crap that they put in your typical cigarrette is really, really unhealthy.
Tobacco – haters are gutless wimps and suckers for propaganda.
http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/comments/misology_in_america_part_21/
http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/comments/misology_in_america_part_2/
Once did a presentation over how badly the dangers of second hand smoke have been hyped. My main piece of evidence was a Congressional Research Service report saying as much. Wish I could find it.
Why smoke though? It makes you smelly and it only lasts for a few minutes. I roll with the dip, Grizzly Straight FTW.
MeMyselfI: “Pure tobacco isn’t nearly as toxic and has been used by mankind for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.”
To be fair, for the majority of that period the general population would have been dead before lung cancer had time to develop anyway.
Anonymous, if you disbelieve an advocacy site for coconut oil (fair enough), then maybe you will instead believe _The New York Times_? http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/dining/02Appe.html?_r=1
@Chris
I understand your point and believe that smoking is bad for health. However, I am starting to believe smoking bad for peoples health due to the hundreds of poisonous additives cigarette companies put into their tobacco.
What do you think?
I worked in one of those mental institutions too. Not only do all of the residents smoke, but they all have COPD if they’re older than 45 or so.
I smoke regularly and I pretty much will always use tobacco in some way or form. I sincerely enjoy it, and moreover I find it necessary for both my creative processes as well as keeping my damn head straight.
I also run around 2 miles and lift weights 4-5 nights a week without getting winded. I also swim and hike for fun on weekends
How?
Pipes, cigarillos, and cheroots. No need to inhale and a far higher nicotine dosage with better quality and purer tobacco than cigs. Far cheaper as well when you do the cost breakdown. Think about it, of the smokers above the age of 70 how many of ‘em are cig smokers and how many are pipe and cigar smokers? Who is in better shape of the two?
Granted there’s a bit of learning curve to smoking a pipe, but there’s no reason why one can’t smoke and can’t engage in aerobic pulmonary intensive activity.
Never forget Simon, that the primary problem with cigarette smoking today is not the tobacco itself, but all of the industrial chemicals involved in the manufacture of mass produced cigarettes.
About 4 years ago, I smoked a fine cigar at a buddies wedding. I liked it so much, I’ve become an occasional, recreational cigar smoker. Since I was never a cigarette smoker, the puffing of a high quality cigar is more than enough for me to ingest the amount of nicotine for it’s pleasant effects.
Becoming an occasional smoker also got me to do some research as well regarding tobacco. I wrote this post here, which also cited the “In defense of smokers,” but I also had another good link explaining why smokers lose weight, and why quitters almost always gain weight – in short, nicotine triggers some mechanism that allows your body to access your stored fatty acids for fuel.
The funny thing is that I average about 2 cigars a week for the past 3 years or so…and I’ve never even come close to getting “addicted.”
Is tobacco really as addictive as we think it is? Or could it really have something to do with all of the crap they add to it?
I love smoking. Thing is…cigarettes are fucking terrible. I would much rather pay 3-6 bucks for a great, handmade cigar made with natural tobbacco and flavorings than the same for a pack of cigs that’s full of harmful chemicals, and after having switched exclusively to smoking only occasional pipes and cigars, cigs are bland at best and downright nasty on average. Besides a full sized cigar lasts at least a good hour, hour and a half or so…Really about the same burn time as a whole pack of cigs when you average it up.
The thing about smoking helping your digestion is spot on…it’s always been common practice for folks to smoke after a meal for this exact reason. People have forgotten this though because smoking is bad for you in every single way…it’s just cause grandpa and uncle bill like to be assholes in resturaunts. /sarcasm
if you want nicotine a better delivery system would be gum instead of cigarettes.
and if smoking itself has a benefit it’s likely a hormetic response, like that seen in small doses of ionizing radiation or the resveratrol that you mentioned.
I agree with most of this post, but…
@
I strongly disagree with that statement ( check out Mangan’s posts on hormesis) especially about vitamin D. There are a bunch of comments and links HERE to back that up my opinion. Some excerpts from ‘Plasma vitamin D and mortality in older men: a community-based prospective cohort study below:-
@gwern: Fair enough.
Lesson for the author: do not attempt to use blatantly self-promotional sites as unbiased sources. It makes you look lazy and/or stupid.
Tobacco does have health benefits. Small amounts of carbon monoxide can be antiinflammatory.
I don’t believe the “tobacco ages you” mantra. It may activate matrix metalloproteinases in skin, but does activated MMPs really equal aging? No.
As with alcohol, tobacco usage should be about balance and knowing what’s right for your own body.
I just got back from Amsterdam and since internet access is so expensive there, I haven’t been able to see what you guys have been commenting on. I’ve got to say I’m impressed and I would like to answer some of your comments.
@Chris:
The problem is with government recomended “healthy” diets. The government only cares about making you dependent, not healthy.
@Stirner:
It’s not just the nicotine that’s beneficial from the tobacco plant.
@Jason:
I’m not anti-science, I’m anti-institutionalized science. Modern institutionalized science has established itself as one of the four horsemen of the contemporary apocalypse. I figure that you know what the other three are.
@tommyBOy:
I didn’t state my choice as to the form of tobacco that I choose to consume. I have seen personally how modern cigarettes are produced and I agree, no way I would ever smoke one of those. Fortunately, there are natural alternatives.
@Proph:
Very good points.
@MeMyselfI:
Another very good points.
@Nestorious:
That’s why I keep my tobacco consumption personal. I never smoke indoors and I would never imagine exposing someone who wished not to be.
@WorkshyJoe:
Binary thinking BAD! Wooof, Wooof.
@Robert in Arabia:
I’m totally stealing those two links for a future article. Hope you don’t mind and thanks.
@colegeslacker:
Damn man, I like that stuff too. you’d be amazed how many times that has gotten me by when I’m on the fourteenth floor of a non-smoking hotel and it’s just too cold and snowy to go outside.
@gwern:
Thanks for the back-up. Sometimes I get so manic about a subject that the rewrites don’t follow the links. Thanks kindly.
@Spike Gomes:
You got the point right from the start. Anyone who uses tobacco for their health and well being will stay away from processed cigarettes.
@Keoni Galt:
I’ve seen the process first hand and you wouldn’t believe the chemicals that the cigarette companies add to the raw tobacco. What used to be rolling factories have morphed into paper mills. The tobacco that goes in, comes out in a completely adulterated form that is not recognizable sometimes even with chemical analysis. I wasn’t trying to make any excuses for manufactured cigarettes, just trying to make people think about possible healthy alternatives.
@Dan:
I completely agree.
@muhr:
I don’t think the effects of all the beneficial compounds of the tobacco plant are conveyed without smoking the plant itself.
@Ken:
As someone who for the last four years has taken 10,000 international units of vitamin D3 every day and as a result hasn’t had a cold, flu or any type of infection or health problem, I might just have to disagree with you on this one.
@Anonymous:
Point taken. I get a little manic when I’m writing so I can’t say I’m lazy about it. I’ll plead guilty to stupid.
@Katherine:
Anyone who would respond to one of my articles that I pretty much wrote in an existential fit of pique and would write these words in her comment, “matrix metalloproteinasas” has my undying respect. I’m definitely adding you to my blogroll.
Please take a look at this article:
Science is conclusive: Tobacco increases work capacity
One thing you didn’t mention:
It’s a widely believed fact (by me) that bars have turned to shit, here in Canada, since they banned smoking. The douchebags who can’t handle the tobacco have started accumulating, and it’s absolutely awful.
You are not alone in disagreeing with me about vitamin D HERE is someone with formidable academic credentials (Phd in epidemiology and professor of medicine) who took several thousands of IU of vitamin D a day for many years and was convinced he was right about it protecting him from cancer and a host of other things. I gotta admit he looks fairly heathy.
He had just over a year to live (cancer of the esophageal junction). Note that above “Greatly increased enterohepatic cancer death rates were ob-served with both low and high plasma vitamin D concentrations. ” Check out my links.
It is later than you think.
You won’t listen of course. <a href="http://www.thenews.com.pk/NewsDetail.aspx?ID=12528"HERE is the brother of the poor fool , he tells us that ” higher levels of vitamin D may be necessary to reduce one’s risk of cancer”. So that’s what killed Frank – vitamin D deficiency!
You may think that swallowing 10,000IU daily is safe because Professor Vieth says so but ingested vitamin D is differently absorbed that skin synthesized D. “Orally administered vitamin D produces swift hepatic delivery and increases in plasma 25-hydroxycholecalciferol”. (In other words it goes sloshing through the circulation like a biological tsunami).
I wonder how Vieth’s vit. D supplement company is doing, pretty good huh ?
@Ken:
Come on, of course I’ll listen. We just have a disagrement on either the harmful or helpful effects of oral supplementation of D3. Here’s a few more articles I found:
http://health.ucsd.edu/news/2011/02-22-vitamin-D-cancer-risk.htm
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/health/Studies-Find-Increasing-Health-Benefits-From-Vitamin-D-95116054.html
http://bestpractice.bmj.com/best-practice/monograph/641/treatment/step-by-step.html
http://www.news-medical.net/news/2005/12/19/15046.aspx
http://www.theautismnews.com/2009/04/24/could-autism-be-caused-by-lack-of-vitamin-d/
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-170112966.html
I’m still listening, you just haven’t convinced me yet.
I’m sure natural tobacco is not all that harmful, but the shit big tobacco uses certainly is.
Also, coconut oil is awesome.
Here is Vieth who is the commonly cited authority on the safety of oral intake of vitamin D Vieth, R. (1999). Vitamin D supplementation, 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations, and safety
“The assembled data from many vitamin D supplementation studies reveal a curve for vitamin D dose versus serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] response that is surprisingly flat up to 250 μg (10000 IU) vitamin D/d. To ensure that serum 25(OH)D concentrations exceed 100 nmol/L, a total vitamin D supply of 100 μg (4000 IU)/d is required”
OK here is my central point:-
If high dose oral intake is perfectly natural and the optimum blood level of vitamin D is at least 100nmol/L ( 40ng/ml) and to attain 40ng/ml it’s necessary to ingest 4000 IU WHY is the curve for vitamin D dose versus serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] response surprisingly flat up to 10000 IU vitamin D.
Vitamin D should be hoovered into the blood (ie the the curve for vitamin D dose versus serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D response should NOT be flat up to 10,000 IU ). In fact the curve for vitamin D dose versus serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D response should only begin to flatten out at an intake of about 4,00IU if 4000IU if a minimal level. But that’s precisely the opposite of what it actualy does do.
Slight typo in last para of prev. comment, it ought to read_
‘Vitamin D should be hoovered into the blood (ie the the curve for vitamin D dose versus serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D response should NOT be flat up to 10,000 IU ). In fact the curve for vitamin D dose versus serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D response should only begin to flatten out at an intake of about 4,00IU if 4000IU is a minimal level. But that’s precisely the opposite of what it actualy does do.’
The reason why the curve begins to take off at 10,000 IU can only be that at 10,000IU is a massive and evolutionarily unprecedented amount to ingest, one which overwhelms the system of vitamin D regulation. 10,000 IU is far more than than the evolved homeostatic mechanisms have ever had to cope with though the oral route.
There are several other studies which suggest that the commonly found vitamin D levels in average people (which are being called deficient by Vieth & co) are in fact perfectly healthy. For example:-
Why are Europeans white?
” [I]f lack of this vitamin created the selection pressure that led to white European skin, why are Europeans genetically polymorphic in their ability to maintain blood levels of vitamin D? At least two alleles reduce the effectiveness of the vitamin-D binding protein, and their homozygotes account for 9% and 18% of French Canadians (Sinotte et al., 2009). If lack of this vitamin had been so chronic, natural selection would have surely weeded out these alleles. And why does European skin limit vitamin-D production after only 20 minutes of UV-B exposure? (Holick, 1995). Why is such a limiting mechanism necessary?”
Tobacco is good.
Everything causes death.
Even pussy can give you fatal clap.
Maternal Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Concentrations Are Associated with Small-for-Gestational Age Births in White Women.
“Maternal Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Concentrations Are Associated with Small-for-Gestational Age Births in White Women [30] “After confounder adjustment, there was a U-shaped relation between serum 25(OH)D and risk of SGA among white mothers, with the lowest risk from 60 to 80 nmol/L. (24 to 32ng/ml) Compared with serum 25(OH)D 37.5–75 nmol/L, SGA odds ratios (95% CI) for levels 75 nmol/L were 7.5 (1.8, 31.9) and 2.1 (1.2, 3.8), respectively”
Plasma vitamin D and mortality in older men: a community-based prospective cohort study. (a very sophisticated 2010 study ) found that those having vitamin D concentrations over 39 ng/ml have a 50% higher total mortality rate.
High vitamin D levels will age you.
Vitamin D and aging
“Recent studies using genetically modified mice, such as FGF23-/- and Klotho-/- mice that exhibit altered mineral homeostasis due to a high vitamin D activity showed features of premature aging that include retarded growth, osteoporosis, atherosclerosis, ectopic calcification, immunological deficiency, skin and general organ atrophy, hypogonadism and short lifespan. The phenotype reversed by normalizing vitamin D and/or mineral homeostasis. Thus, hypervitaminosis D due to an increased 1alpha-hydroxylase activity seems to be a cause of the premature aging. In several studies, we have described that a complete or partial lack of vitamin D action (VDR-/- mice and CYP27B1-/-) show almost similar phenotype as FGF23-/- or Klotho-/- mice. VDR mutant mice have growth retardation, osteoporosis, kyphosis, skin thickening and wrinkling, alopecia, ectopic calcification, progressive loss of hearing and balance as well as short lifespan. CYP27B1-/- mice do not show alopecia nor balance deficit, which might be apoVDR-dependent or calcidiol-dependent. The features are typical to premature aging. The phenotype is resistant to a normalization of the mineral homeostasis by a rescue diet containing high calcium and phosphate. Taken together, aging shows a U-shaped dependency on hormonal forms of vitamin D suggesting that there is an optimal concentration of vitamin D in delaying aging phenomena. {…} Calcidiol serum concentrations show a U-shaped risk of prostate cancer suggesting an optimal serum concentration of 40-60 nmol/L [ 16 - 24 ng/ml ] for the lowest cancer risk.”
Ken,
Read Peter Frost’s take on Vit D supplementation. My wife is an RD and took some during her pregnancy and her blood levels didn’t budge 1nmol. It’s a fat soluble vitamin that can also have adverse effects since it’s basically a hormone so beware people touting it. Most of its proponents are just trying to sell Vit D tests.
What you’ve written suggests that, if anything, the blood stream acts like a heavy buffer towards vit D.
Take a look at vitamin D supplementation advocate Robert P. Heaney, does he look healthy to you?
I think Calabrese the hormesis guy looks far better for his age than Heaney.
Heaney looks homeless/crazy. Crazy outside usually means crazy inside. Calabrese looks much better.
IoM Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin D NYT article. The 14-member expert committee, convened by the Institute of Medicine, examined nearly 1,000 publications. They have determined that most people have adequate amounts of vitamin D, ie a level of 20 to nanograms of vitamin D per milliliter of blood. This all that anyone needs, (not over 30 nanograms of vitamin D per milliliter of blood which the committee says is at the top of the normal range). There is no support for claims that the higher levels which require supplements to attain are beneficial, a level of 20 to 30 nanograms is all that is needed for bone health and almost everyone is in that range. Not only is there no benefit in trying to attain levels of 40 to 50 nanograms the committee says there are now indications that such high concentrations are harmful. Adequate amounts of vitamin D are supplied by the natural source – sunshine. It is actually very difficult to restrict vitamin D, one would have to stay out of the sun and the shade to avoid the UVB photons that bounce off the sky the ground ect. I suspect that is why Klotho, a gene related to a syndrome resembling human premature aging, functions in a negative regulatory circuit of vitamin D endocrine system.
And it doesn’t take much time time either. Vitamin D production depends on ultraviolet-B dose but not on dose rate: A randomized controlled trial.
“In conclusion, the increase in 25(OH)D after UV-B exposure depends on the dose but not on the dose rate (1-20 min). Further, a significant increase in 25(OH)D was achieved with a very low UV-B dose.”
Funnily enough the IoM 14-member expert committee knows what they are talking about – Low and High Vitamin D Levels in Older Women Associated With Increased Likelihood of Frailty“Conclusion: Lower (<20 ng/ml) and higher (30 ng/ml) levels of 25(OH)D among older women were moderately associated with a higher odds of frailty at baseline".
@Ken:
WTF, is this some type of crusade that you have a personal interest in pursuing? Tell me who died that was close to you and why, we’ll talk about it, because otherwise you seem to be spending way too much energy on this subject…
“I’ve always known that if everyone I was exposed to in society and the media was telling me the same thing, they were most likely lying”
Like ANYTHING, smoking is OK in moderation. It is good for concentration, cogitation, relaxation, anxiety reduction, lung exercise, just to name some of the mental benefits. The thing is not to use it as a substitute for exercise, singing, etc. That means keep it down to a few a day.
If you look at the bottom of this page you can listen to an interview with the Dr. who wrote the book “the health benefits of tobacco” about the possible beneficial effects tobacco can have.
http://www.eruptingmind.com/free-coast-to-coast-am-radio-shows/
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