Re: Smoking, lungs, exercise and cleaning.

SteveTBM wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have had a pub argument with a smoker friend. He insists that smoking is
> not so bad if you take regular exercise as this will help clean the lungs.
> Is he correct or does a person simply need healthy lungs with undamaged
> cilia to 'sweep' pollutants out of the airways? Does any one have any links
> to demonstrate the argument?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Steve

        Interesting thought.  Kneejerk answer would be to say "Exercise
does help", but as heavy breathing opens more alveoli, etc., one could
argue that smoke et al could now penetrate that much further. Don't know
about cilia in exercise.
        The issue is: will exercise mitigate *other* system wide health
effects of smoking, vs. specific lung effects.  The less knee-jerk
answer is def. yes to the first, unknown to the second.

        But the whole smoking issue is statistically interesting.  The
lung cancer rate in the non-smoking public is, I think, 1 out of 100,
abs. max.  Probably 1 in 10,000.  Whatever it is, smoking doubles or
triples the risk, which means 2 or so out of _____  will get lung
cancer, instead of 1.  So the rate of lung cancer in smokers is still
pretty low, just higher than in non-smokers. We are led to believe that
smoking makes cancer *likely*, which is not the case.
        Still, it is a habit with absolutely no redeeming factors, and
many system-wide ill effects.  Pure nicotine happens to be one of the
most toxic chemicals on earth, and I suspect that the combustion of the
cigarette alters it so that its toxicity is actually reduced in the
smoking process!  But tobacco pickers, from what I've read, suffer from
nicotine poisoning via absorption through the skin.
        
        The stock of RJ Reynolds et al continues to do very well.  And
what could be more Clockwork Orange-esque than a company who in
nationwide we-been-bad-boys ads tells you not to buy their lousy
product, then continues to advertise it, and whose stock keeps rising?? 
Good effing grief--no wonder our kids can't read--there's no point to
reading!!  They might as well--and I guess they do--sell drugs, just
like RJ Reynolds, less the bi-polar advertising budget.
----------------------
Kristofer Hogg, ms, rd
          HoloBarre Rehab/Fitness/Stretching Systems, Yonkers, NY
          to email: Remove the numeric value of pi in my address
-------------------------------------------------------------------