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Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

nytimes.com

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Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#121

Post by Retric »

bbarn wrote: post #107
amalcon wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difficulty of quitting varies a lot from person to person. I knew a couple back in the nineties, where one partner was able to quit using the patch. It just worked for him, and was reportedly not that difficult. He was done with tobacco immediately, and done with nicotine entirely within the month. The other partner tried everything . Cold turkey, gradual reduction, patches, gum, change of location plus each of t…

I guess the point I was trying to make wasn't to brag that it was so great and easy for me to do, it's to say that maybe we have culturally made it seem harder than it is. The more press it gets the more the belief is reinforced. We have tobacco companies still cranking out the same garbage, almost with the attitude that they are forced to keep making this horrific product because people are hooked on it. They keep t…

You can't generalize from personal experience.

I smoked less than 3 packs of cigarettes in my life, stopped 15 years ago, and I still get cravings. Alcohol on the other hand has zero pull for me.

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#122

Post by bbarn »

piva00 wrote: post #117
bbarn wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think as a culture (speaking here in the US) we've made quitting smoking out to be much harder than it actually is. One of the problems with this massive marketing campaign saying things like "You can quit with help!", etc.. is it's focusing on how difficult it's supposed to be. After 20 years or so of being a smoker, I just decided I didn't want to be embarrassed about the way I smelled in elevators anymore, and q…

I quit cold turkey after 7 years of smoking and I'm really glad that I did. So with that I can say: the pain of quitting doesn't last only a day, it's good you didn't experience depression, I never had depression before or after that but I was clinically depressed for 3 weeks, I was apathetic about life in general, would wake up and not feel motivation to do anything, I'd do them anyway because it was a routine (eat,…

It's not to say I didn't have urges.. doing something for almost 20 years, anything, is hard to let go of. But that nail biting aggravated irritableness lasted about a day for me.

Part of it may be that because of the whole bike racing thing, I had had several occasions where I'd been through weekend long periods I couldn't really get to smoke, or had to make due with patches or gums. I would also immediately light up when I got away from those friends. Those times, I'd also tried white-knuckling through weekends, been just as irritable, but it kept going for days like you said. When I mentally made the switch to not smoking anymore though, it was different, much easier than those 3 day weekends ever were.

I've heard lots of people say the same thing to me, once you do it, you know it's done. You're not just holding off for a few days or seeing how long you can go, you're just mentally done with it. Or maybe I just tricked myself and it worked. :)

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#123

Post by davidf18 »

A lot of cancer is self-inflicted such as smoking cigarettes. Even though they know smoking is bad for them and they've had relatives that have died from tobacco, teens continue to use it and become addicted to smoking.

In NYC, cigarettes cost $12-$14 per pack it is against the law to buy cigarettes until age 21. Countries that have universal healthcare such as Canada, UK, France all have tobacco taxes that exceed $5 per pack. Our US Federal tax is about $1.

The high cost of tobacco and the increase age for buying tobacco (now the same as drinking alcohol which is also 21) helps to prevent teens from becoming using and becoming addicted to tobacco.

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#124

Post by agumonkey »

wocg wrote: post #120
agumonkey wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been reading a few recent papers about cardiology, but I didn't find a lot, could you list some references ? ps: I tried to get off processed food for raw veggies and fruit, but most cities are flooded with utterly shitty ones. It's still a huge increase in terms of health (sugar really is like a drug), but way suboptimal.

It's not my experience that cities have bad raw veggies and fruit (I've lived near Boston and in NYC). Be that as it may, if you cannot find raw produce, you may want to look for the frozen stuff. http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/frozen-vegetables-are-hot "Nutritionally speaking, frozen veggies are similar to -- and sometimes better than -- fresh ones. This makes sense, considering that these veggies are usually fla…

Never heard of this, gonna give it a look. Maybe I live in a bad neighborhood, but the amount of barely edible oranges, apples, carrots .. It's like eating plastic. I take comfort in thinking that at least there's no additives.

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#125

Post by randomgyatwork »

roldie wrote: post #106

>A bigger concern to me is that people might interpret these findings as assigning fault to people who get cancer. You don’t want to get into situations where you feel as if people don’t deserve help because they didn’t try hard enough to stay healthy. Much of cancer is still out of people’s control. Although only one paragraph, I'm glad the author addressed this. All of these tips and lifestyle changes are great but…

I agree, a woman who worked for my mom died of lung cancer, she never smoked once in her life.

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#126

Post by magic_beans »

kefka wrote: post #112
bbarn wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Focus on the smell. Make it long enough (about 24 hours) to notice other smokers smell. That is the smell of other people being repulsed by you. You smell like that in every elevator, every time you introduce yourself to someone, and no amount of gum or tooth brushing covers it up. You can't smell it while you smoke, but the rest of the world can. It was enough to keep me dedicated knowing I could confidently talk to…

To go along with that, I would never, ever date a smoker. Its like kissing an ash tray. That's something I can easily go without.

Everyone uses that little trope, "like kissing an ashtray" but I find that untrue. There's a really weird acidity when you're kissing someone who's just smoked, like coffee-breath and garbage.

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#127

Post by panglott »

bbarn wrote: post #88
l1feh4ck wrote: post #44

To guys out there who still smoke. Please quit. It can be done.

I think as a culture (speaking here in the US) we've made quitting smoking out to be much harder than it actually is. One of the problems with this massive marketing campaign saying things like "You can quit with help!", etc.. is it's focusing on how difficult it's supposed to be. After 20 years or so of being a smoker, I just decided I didn't want to be embarrassed about the way I smelled in elevators anymore, and q…

A lot of this impression about the difficulty of quitting smoking arose in the 1980s and 1990s. At the time, smoking was omnipresent and taken for granted. Nobody asked permission to light up any place. If you were a nonsmoker out with friends, you'd sometimes be left nearly alone by yourself when everyone went out to take a smoke break together. I never smoked, but I reckon that these social factors made it much, much more difficult to quit and to stay quit.

A critical mass was reached in the 2000s, though, and now the bulk of social pressure is on helping people quit and stay quit. Frequently it's the smoker who will be alone in the cold on their smoke break. & besides, we have effective smoking cessation drugs like Chantix (how my wife quit).

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#128

Post by JoeAltmaier »

panglott wrote: post #127
bbarn wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think as a culture (speaking here in the US) we've made quitting smoking out to be much harder than it actually is. One of the problems with this massive marketing campaign saying things like "You can quit with help!", etc.. is it's focusing on how difficult it's supposed to be. After 20 years or so of being a smoker, I just decided I didn't want to be embarrassed about the way I smelled in elevators anymore, and q…

A lot of this impression about the difficulty of quitting smoking arose in the 1980s and 1990s. At the time, smoking was omnipresent and taken for granted. Nobody asked permission to light up any place. If you were a nonsmoker out with friends, you'd sometimes be left nearly alone by yourself when everyone went out to take a smoke break together. I never smoked, but I reckon that these social factors made it much, mu…

Back in the army you quickly realized that when taking a smoke break, the guy who didn't smoke was volunteered to fetch the truck or whatever. So you learned to smoke, to avoid extra duty.

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#129

Post by Pica_soO »

15charlimit wrote: post #114
Pica_soO wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think it only fair to put the burden of the health damage on the company who sells addictive products. If you sell cigarettes and a customer looses part of the lung, you pay or behave to prevent. If you sell alcohol and a customer drives a car in a crowd, you pay or behave to prevent. If you are a narco and sell crack, you pay for the results. The problem is not the unknown problems with those substances, its…

By that logic, no individual is responsible for anything they ever do because just about everything is "addictive" or "habit forming" in some way. Your suggestion is terrible for a number of reasons, but primarily due to the shirking of personal responsibility that it promotes. Should Hershey be required to pay medical costs for morbidly obese individuals because they eat a dozen chocolate bars a day? Sugar is a high…

That personal responsibility thing works out great doesn't it. https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statisti...

I think it would be a great start if we started to differentiate- some humans are capeable of this, but others are not. To just leave them to there suffering because they had a "choosing-chance" is just wrong. No pr-opaganda can explain the facts on the ground away, sorry.

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#130

Post by peteretep »

parfe wrote: post #115
peteretep wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the difficulty lies in finding an individual to > measure that will make BMI fall apart I'm 5'11 with a 36 inch waist. This gives me a waist-to-height ratio of 0.507, which has me just under or over the healthy cut-off, depending on who you ask[0]. I was 212lbs this morning, giving me a BMI of 29.6, which has me at the border of "Overweight" and "Obese Class I (Moderately obese)", and is high risk. I don't think yo…

>A WHtR of over 0.5 is critical and signifies an increased risk Both measures put you in an at risk categories. Why doesn't that concern you?

It does, which is why I know exactly how much I weighed this morning.
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