Ronald Bailey | September 2, 2008
The Journal of the National Cancer Institute has published great new charts showing the risk of dying of various causes for men and women from age 35 and on. It will not surprise anyone that smoking is a bad idea (that is, if you want to up your chances of living a long time.*) The abstract of the analysis notes:
At all ages, the 10-year risk of death from all causes combined is higher for men than women. The effect of smoking on the chance of dying is similar to the effect of adding 5 to 10 years of age. For men who never smoked, heart disease death represents the single largest cause of death from age 50 on. For men who currently smoke, the chance of dying from lung cancer is of the same order of magnitude as the chance of dying from heart disease from age 60 on, and after age 50, it is 10 times greater than the chance of dying from prostate or colon cancer. For women who never smoked, the 10-year risks of death from breast cancer and heart disease are similar until age 60; from this age on, heart disease represents the single largest cause of death. For women who currently smoke, the chance of dying from heart disease or lung cancer exceeds the chance of dying from breast cancer from age 40 on.
See your risks in the charts below:
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For the actual numbers go here for the men's chart and here for the women's chart.
*Disclosure: I am a former 3-pack a day smoker. I quit 22 years ago.
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Look at the shocking differential between genders in fatalities
by age for AIDS.
I guess "cougars" are a myth after all.
Elemenope,
A lot of it has to do with the perception pounded into people of
your age group that AIDS is as big a problem in the heterosexual
community as the male homosexual community in the First World.
Thinking of AIDS in epidemiological way and not a politically
correct way makes the numbers perfectly understandable.
Less than 6% of men with HIV are straight, according to the CDC.
Chip away at those numbers with men who are lying about past
same-sex contact and IV drug use, and the Journal of the American
Medical Association says that a one-time encounter with a woman who
never personally did IV drugs with no protection at all results in
a 1 in 5,000,000 chance of contracting HIV.
Of course, if so many people hadn't been so eager to write AIDS off
as "that fag disease" then it would have never been necessary to
scare the heterosexual community into taking it seriously as a
disease that affects them as well.
Of course, if so many people hadn't been so eager to write
AIDS off as "that fag disease" then it would have never been
necessary to scare the heterosexual community into taking it
seriously as a disease that affects them as well.
So true. While I have some lukewarm affection for Reagan's two
terms in office, this is a snafu that gets laid right at his
doorstep, as his policy and public comment decisions helped to
create it.
Bad Reagan! [Hits Reagan's corpse with rolled-up newspaper]
Bad!
And, simply because it is not endemic to the heterosexual
population in the developed world doesn't mean it couldn't
be, if it were to be taken less seriously, as is evident by the
South Asian and African experience with the disease.
Ron,
How much must you smoke to fall into these catagories? You stated
you were a 3 pack a day smoker. I have friends that are pack a day
smokers and who only smoke 3 cigs a day.
On a personal note. What kind of smokers exactly? I've never smoked
a cigarette in my life but for roughly 5 years I was high at least
4 or 5 times a week.
but what about the terrorists??? They are all out there and they want to kill me...
one-time encounter with a woman who never personally did IV
drugs with no protection at all results in a 1 in 5,000,000 chance
of contracting HIV
Thank god. Still have to watch out for herpes, though.
"Look, yes, I have banged hundreds of broads, internationally, but
know this: I wrap my rascal TWO times 'cause I like it to be
joyless and without sensation as a way of punishing
supermodels."
Naga Sadow: According to the JNCI study:
"A never smoker has smoked less than 100 cigarettes in his
life; a current smoker has smoked at least 100 cigarettes or more
in his life and smokes (any amount) now; a former smoker has smoked
at least 100 cigarettes in the past, but no longer smokes
now."
As a 71 year old non-smoker, all I have to do is make it 4 more years and all danger from death disappears? Wow, it's like winning the Publisher's Clearinghouse and not having to put up with Ed McMahon.
Epi,
If you wrap up your chick stick, it falls to 1 in 50,000,000.
A wise man once said:
Condoms are the most feminist of the birth control methods,
they strip almost all pleasure out of sex for men.
Old Timer,
Correct old timer, you will become immortal. Just watch out for
sword wielding maniacs on a never ending quest to be "The One".
i've always wondered how people in the past found time to smoke two or three packs of cigarettes. pulling 18 hour days would help, no doubt, as did being able to smoke anywhere. (comparatively speaking)
Thanks Ron. I get the impression that a joint is being counted as a cigarette.
If you wrap up your chick stick, it falls to 1 in
50,000,000.
Only a tenfold increase? Ha ha, fuck that. I'll tell you what the
trick is: don't sleep with girls with diseases. I have now given
you the secret to life.
Episiarch,
Leon Phelps: My name is Leon Phelps, and to those of you that are
uninitiated, I am an expert in the ways of love. I have made love
to many fine ladies from the lowliest bus station skank to the
classiest most sophisticated, educated, debutant, high society...
bus station skank.
SugarFree,
Leon Phelps: But guys you can not blame the wang.
Smoking is bad for you?
Has this been confirmed?
If so, we should teach the kids about that in school. Maybe even
require warning labels on smoking products for the multitudes of
American smokers who are unaware of this grounbreaking news.
dhex,
When it's something you believe in, you make the time.
I watched my dad smoke himself into a heart attack at 33. He'd have
a cigarette in bed before getting up to take a morning piss. He'd
smoke while eating. He'd smoke while swimming in a pool. I have no
doubt I was conceived in cloud of smoke, and born in the same--my
mother's cervix hacking me out like screaming phlegm.
That's the sort of dedication to self-destruction you don't see
much anymore. Thankfully.
i've always wondered how people in the past found time to
smoke two or three packs of cigarettes
Ever seen a chain smoker in action? Mindblowing. I have smoked and
I like it and I can't conceive of doing that.
Wow, now THAT is scary indeed. Who would have think it.
Jess
http://useurl.us/12m
texas_libertarian,
I'm pretty sure my info is bad or out of date but . . . my
understanding was that no real data is kept or recorded concerning
heroin, cocaine, crack, etc. Something about the federal government
refusing to do basic research on such "dangerous" drugs.
How do you put links on your post?
use the "a" hypertext tag. An explanation is here.
I watched my dad smoke himself into a heart attack at
33.
jesus christmas.
i had an old boss here who said she used to smoke in the morning
while taking a shower. i still don't understand how she did that
while taking care of the whole showering thing.
still, she had to smoke every 20 minutes or so. even in the 80s
most offices were smoke free, right? (she's a lawyer).
i was never that dexterous, i suppose. plus a three pack a day
habit in the city will cost you 840/month now, if you stay in the
legit economy. (dunno what grey market prices are; they were five
bucks a pack about a year ago.)
Yogi,
It's there. You probably don't have the screen resolution to see a
dot only a few microns across.
El,
Thanks for the "out to lunch" answer. Although, to be fair, with my
track record lately, asking me for HTML advice is probably not a
good idea. Stupid tags.
Where are the risks associated with "good time girls" in
Bailey's nifty chart? Those broads will make you waste all your
money, give you gonorrhea, AND by sleeping with them you'll be
inadvertently helping the Axis!
SF,
Did you see the "bag of trouble" one? Awesome.
Wait, how big is the circle for terrorism?
A hundred of them would fit inside the period at the end of this
sentence.
Thanks for the "out to lunch" answer. Although, to be fair, with my
track record lately, asking me for HTML advice is probably not a
good idea. Stupid tags.
I was, until recently, cripplingly bad at closing all the relevant
quotemarks and tagmarks necessary to make a linky.
too much typey, not enough thinkey.
Wait, how big is the circle for terrorism?
About as big as the hole they rammed the PATRIOT ACT through? Why
aren't you frightened?!?
Epi: if you wear two condoms at once, the friction can cause them to tear and they won't work as birth control anymore.
SugarFree wrote:
> Less than 6% of men with HIV are straight, according to the
CDC. Chip away at those numbers with men who are lying about past
same-sex contact and IV drug use, and the Journal of the American
Medical Association says that a one-time encounter with a woman who
never personally did IV drugs with no protection at all results in
a 1 in 5,000,000 chance of contracting HIV.
>
> Of course, if so many people hadn't been so eager to write
AIDS off as "that fag disease" then it would have never been
necessary to scare the heterosexual community into taking it
seriously as a disease that affects them as well.
Uh...your argument is "reality is X, not Y ... if it hadn't been
for large numbers of people correctly apprehending reality X, then
it never would have 'been necessary' to lie to them and falsely
claim that X is false and Y is true" ?
Next up: a campaign to convince people that death from falling out
out of our vehicle and on to the road is just as likely to affect
us car drivers as it is to affect motorcyclists...and, after all,
if we car drivers didn't think that that's mostly a problem for
motorcyclists, we would FORCE people to lie to us...
In case you blinked and missed it: The long predicted heterosexual AIDS epidemics that never happened in the US, Canada, Europe or Asia were officially called off a few weeks ago by top officials at the World Health Organization. These same experts stated that the only place on earth where heterosexual AIDS is happening (or supposed to be happening if you can believe the same institutions that misrepresented the whole threat for two decades) is in sub-Saharan Africa where they claim people have a series of ever changing multiple, concurrent sexual partners. The idea that only these particular black people (mis)behave in this particular way seems oddly racist.
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