Talk:Health effects of tobacco/Archive 2

Health effects of particular forms of tobacco
In an effort to mitigate the clutter caused by people periodically adding large sections of text that essentially duplicates what is found here, I have created a new section discussing health effects of particular forms of tobacco. This would be helpful for people interested in comparing health effect of different tobacco products. People periodically add ever-larger sections on health to the cigar and pipe smoking articles which essentially duplicate what is found here. Please use this new section instead of doing that in the future. Frotz (talk) 17:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


 * It's completely inappropriate to edit Cigar to remove all discussion of health effects, just as it would be completely inappropriate to edit Alcoholic beverage to remove all discussion of health effects of alcohol. The brief discussion of health effects in Cigar is a summary, with the full discussion in Health effects of tobacco, and this is a fine style for an encyclopedia. Let's leave it the way it was, please. Eubulides (talk) 19:39, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Your analogy is incorrect. Alcoholic beverage is more akin to Tobacco.  Both of those articles have a section of health effects and a link to an article talking only about health effects.  One would not expect to find detailed warnings of alcohol-releated problems in Whiskey or Beer.  Likewise, it is not appropriate to put entire sections of health warnings in Cigar.  As an aside for Beer, it appears that the health section there is being filled with general alcohol material rather than beer-specific material.  Frotz (talk) 20:26, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid that this argument isn't correct. Few reliable health sources focus specifically on whiskey versus other types of alcoholic beverages. In contrast, many, many reliable sources specifically on the health effects of cigars, as opposed to that of other forms of smoked tobacco. Cigar  focuses specifically on these sources: it is not about tobacco in general, and spends very little time talking about of tobacco in general, referring to the appropriate page for further information. A large fraction of all reliable sources on cigars focus on their health effects: for example, I just now visited Google Scholar and typed "cigar", and found that all seven of the seven citations on the first pages that were about cigars, were about their health effects. (The other three were about cigar-shaped objects, or about a Mr. Cigar.) Given that reliable sources place such a heavy emphasis on the health effects of cigars, it would be a clear violation of Wikipedia's WP:WEIGHT policy for the Cigar article to say essentially nothing about health effects. Eubulides (talk) 02:03, 23 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm quite aware that few sources focus specifically on whiskey or (insert your favorite alcoholic beverage here) when talking about alcohol and health. The point is that to do the same thing with tobacco products is incorrect.  Do you live in California or have you been there?  You can hardly go anywhere without seeing a Prop 65 warning sign.  This is the kind of thing I'm trying to mitigate.  We don't need to essentially mirror large chunks of Health effects of tobacco in every tobacco-related article.  A sentence or two and a link will suffice.  Frotz (talk) 07:12, 23 December 2009 (UTC)


 * This comment doesn't address my main point, which is that the vast majority of reliable scholarly sources that talk about cigars focus on their health effects. Whether individual Wikipedia editors consider this focus "incorrect" or "correct" is not that important: our policy is to respect the WP:WEIGHT given topics by reliable sources. Given the heavy weight that reliable sources give to the topic, even the one paragraph currently in Cigar  is way too small: trimming this down to "a sentence or two" would clearly be a WP:NPOV violation. There was no "mirror of large chunks": Cigar  is about cigars in particular, not about tobacco in general. Eubulides (talk) 07:46, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Health effects of tobacco
Dare I ask, but is there any good that comes out of smoking, to explain why people smoke? This artice only list everything bad, but the title says Heath effects. 98.111.130.141 (talk) 19:21, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal
This is one of potentially several mergers. Several articles containing references to tobacco contain material that is nearly identical to what is found in this article. In many cases, there appears to be a "mission" to warn anyone reading any article referencing tobacco about hazards involving its use. This sort of thing needlessly clutters up articles and runs afoul of WP:MISSION and WP:GREATWRONGS. Frotz (talk) 17:45, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Somehow I forgot to list the affected articles. They are: Pipe smoking, Hookah, Cigar, Chewing tobacco, and Snuff. Frotz (talk) 19:22, 27 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Concur, for the reasons stated by Frotz. A short statement (e.g. "As is the case with the consumption of any tobacco product, some degree of health risk is incurred") might be appropriate, but in my opinion the meat of the "Health Risks" section really belongs in its own article. Mark Shaw (talk) 18:14, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Since Frotz did not list the articles in question, you are probably not aware that some of them do not contain "meat of the "Health Risks"", but quite "short statement", see Pipe smoking. Therefore I would like you to reconsider the suggested mergers individually after Frotz lists all pages he suggests to merge. Mukadderat (talk) 19:15, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Summary style is an approach when a certain important subject is relevant to several articles, and this style allows us to avoid unnecessary forking while discussing important things wherever they are important. If you find "nearly identical texts", you should apply the "summary style" if they are long. If they are short, there is not always a reason to worry and consider the issue according to the criterion of immediate relevance. Depending on the case of a short text, you may just replace by a "see also" entry, trim it further, including a wikilink to main text, or remove altogether. Mukadderat (talk) 19:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It sounds as if you just agreed with Mark Shaw above. Frotz (talk) 20:02, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It means that our positions are not 100% antagonistic. I think that Shaw simply got confused and thought that you are talking about massive forking, which of course warrants merge. But there is nothing to merge from, say, pipe smoking. Therefore I asked him to review the articles in question (now listed, thanks) and review his vote. Mukadderat (talk) 23:56, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I also oppose lumping several merger proposals into one. Each merger must be handled by its own merits. At least you should have listed all articles you suggest to merge. Mukadderat (talk) 19:09, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * What's the problem? The same thing is being done to multiple articles.  Notice that I added a list of articles affected.  Frotz (talk) 20:02, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The problem that we didn't know what "is being done to multiple articles". How can one possibly vote without seeing the articles to merge, beats me. Thanks for the list. Mukadderat (talk) 23:56, 27 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Strong oppose, at least with respect to Cigar.This thread is partly a result of an earlier disagreement, where an editor cigar-specific material from Cigar and then  that material into Health effects of tobacco. The deletion was reverted, but not the insertion, so now there's duplication between the two articles, but that can easily be fixed by removing the undesirable insertion.
 * What's being proposed here is to remove all health-related information from Cigar (an article I follow), and presumably from similar articles. But that would be contrary to Wikipedia policy on neutral point of view. Wikipedia policy is to present material about cigars, giving the same weight to various topics that reliable sources do. And when one consults high-quality sources on cigars, the vast majority of these sources discuss health effects in some detail.
 * You don't have to take my word for this. Go to Google Scholar and try the query "cigar". If you filter out the results that are about a Mr. Cigar or cigar-shaped bosons and so forth, and focus purely on the subject of Cigar, you'll find that the vast majority of results are about health effects. I just now did the query and here are the first 10 results about the cigars that we smoke:
 * Effect of Cigar Smoking on the Risk of Cardiovascular Disease, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, and Cancer in Men
 * Cigar, Pipe, and Cigarette Smoking as Risk Factors for Periodontal Disease and Tooth Loss
 * Goblet Cell Increase in Rat Bronchial Epithelium after Exposure to Cigarette and Cigar Tobacco Smoke
 * Cigar and Pipe Smoking and Lung Cancer Risk: a Multicenter Study From Europe
 * Health Risks Associated With Cigar Smoking
 * Absorption of Nicotine in Cigarette and Cigar Smoke through the Oral Mucosa
 * Prospective study of effect of switching from cigarettes to pipes or cigars on mortality from three smoking related diseases
 * Associations between cigarette smoking, pipe/cigar smoking, and smoking cessation, and haemostatic and inflammatory markers for cardiovascular disease
 * Cigar Smoking in Men and Risk of Death From Tobacco-Related Cancers (
 * Influence of cigarette, pipe, and cigar smoking, removable partial dentures, and age on oral leukoplakia
 * Now, Google Scholar isn't perfect, but when the top 10 scholarly sources on cigars are all on health effects, that's a clear and inarguable indication that health effects should be given considerable weight in the Cigar article. It could well be that, due to space considerations, the health effects should be put in a subarticle: but discussion of health effects should not be removed completely: such an important topic should be adequately summarized directly in Cigar according to the Wikipedia WP:SUMMARY style.
 * Just as some editors are on a "mission" to make tobacco articles only health-related, some other editors are on a "mission" to remove all health-related information from tobacco articles. Both extremes introduce point of view, and both extremes must be avoided. What's being proposed here is one of the two extremes, which would have an effect of censoring health-related information from tobacco topics. That is not something that we can or should do.
 * Eubulides (talk) 00:29, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * There is a big difference between a main subject of health and a main subject of cigars. All the articles you cited have health as their main subject.  Cigars are a secondary subject.  Frotz (talk) 00:39, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No, an article entitled "Health Risks Associated With Cigar Smoking" is primarily about cigars. It's also primarily about health effects, true; but saying that it's only "secondarily" about cigars is absurd. It would be like arguing that an article entitled "Marketing and Promotion of Cigars" should be rejected as a source because it's primarily about marketing and only "secondarily" about cigars. Eubulides (talk) 01:27, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Look at Cigar and you'll see quite clearly that the section on marketing and promoting cigars is secondary to the subject of cigars. What you're suggesting is akin to a discussion about bicycles and hazards associated with them.  Pull up a medical article on injuries suffered in bike accidents.  Can you realistically claim that such an article is primarily about bikes?  Ask yourself what the point of the article is.  Such a medical article focuses on injuries, not bikes.  Likewise, the articles you dug up are primarily about injuries in connection with cigars.  Frotz (talk) 04:59, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * My search was not limited to medical sources: it used Google Scholar to find all scholarly sources on cigars. If reliable sources on bicycles focus on their hazards, then an encyclopedic article on bicycles should cover bicycle safety: that's elementary. And yes, it's reasonable to say that the article "Health Risks Associated with Cigar Smoking" is primarily about cigars. It ain't about petunias. Eubulides (talk) 06:39, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * How many scientific papers are written about hobbies that aren't especially scientific in nature? Frotz (talk) 07:09, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Hangon. As I suggested elsewhere, it makes sense to have health effects in several pages. However great care should be taken so that the corresponding section focuses on health effects related to this particular way of smoking, and in comparison with other methods. If there is nothing specific, single summarizing sentence with the wikilink to "Health effects of tobacco" will do. If the editor is sure that there is sufficiently much specific information may be found, a section stub may be created/maintained, otherwise the summary sentence may be written elsewhere, even in "See also" (which  can have more text in a bullet than just a wikilink). For example, I may readily believe that chewing tobacco and tobacco smoking and tobacco sniffing have recognizable differences in their effects.  - Altenmann >t 00:49, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * P.S. Dipping tobacco has also "health effects", BTW. - Altenmann >t 00:58, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It's quite right to say that any discussion of health effects in Cigar should be specific to cigars. And Cigar  is indeed specific to cigars: every sentence is about health effects of cigars, and is supported by a reliable source that is primarily about cigars. Eubulides (talk) 01:27, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * My omission of dipping was an accident. Please assume good faith.  Frotz (talk) 04:59, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Please don't be overly defensive: no offense intended. No one expected or demanded from you to browse thru all tobacciana articles. - Altenmann >t 19:14, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry. I thought Ebulides was doing that to me.  Frotz (talk) 19:56, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposed anti-clutter line
My entire motivation in this merger proposal is clutter. The primary reasons of opposition I've seen are that health warnings are on topic. Most articles containing a table of contents have a few short paragraphs above that table. Suppose we add a paragraph at the bottom of this introduction containing one of these:

As with all tobacco products, foobars entail some health risk.

As with all tobacco products, foobars entail some health risk.

The first one seems to make proper use of Wiki templates, but the second seems cleaner. Either one would also avoid the problem of two or more articles with similar content getting out of sync with each other or even contradict each other over time. I really don't relish the idea of periodically going over all the tobacco-related articles to keep this stuff in sync. Frotz (talk) 18:14, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * As noted in  above, health-related information is not "clutter"; for example, reliable scholarly sources on cigars place great weight on cigars' health effects. The Cigar article should not segregate health-related information off into a different article, leaving behind only a tiny pointer, as that would put the "pro"-cigar stuff in Cigar, and the "anti"-cigar stuff in some other article. Such a practice would clearly violate content forking guidelines, and would run afoul of Wikipedia policy on neutral point of view. There should be no effort to scrub all health-related information from Cigar: health-related effects are an important aspect of cigar use. Similarly for other tobacco-related articles: if reliable sources give considerable weight to health effects of particular products, the corresponding articles should too. Eubulides (talk) 20:55, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * You still haven't addressed the distinction between a primary and secondary subject and the fact that non-scientific hobbies (ie fly-fishing) typically don't have scientific papers written with the hobby as a primary subject. A hobby like radio involves quite a bit of science and unsurprisingly lots of scientific papers are written with radio as the primary subject.  I have tried to be cordial with you and assume good faith, but you constantly ascribe motivations that are simply not there. Frotz (talk) 21:21, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * My comments did indeed address the distinction between "primary" and "secondary" subject. (Evidently you disagreed, but that's a different matter.) It would be just as much a mistake to arbitrarily exclude reliable scientific sources from Fly fishing as it would be to arbitrarily exclude them from Cigar. Currently the first source cited in Fly fishing is a paper entitled "Numerical analysis of flycasting mechanics", which contradicts the assertion that hobbies typically don't have scientific papers written about them. Eubulides (talk) 21:34, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I said "typically don't". I didn't assert that such papers aren't written; just that they aren't common.  Let's try another example: In a fly-fishing magazine, you would not expect a numerical analysis on flycasting mechanics.  You entirely dismissed the distinction of "primary" versus "secondary".  I don't consider that to be addressing them.  So, once again, why is it acceptable to focus so intently on a secondary subject?  Frotz (talk) 22:15, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Scientific papers of course rarely appear in fly-fishing magazines, just as they rarely appear in Cigar Aficionado. But that doesn't mean that Wikipedia should not cite them. On the contrary, the whole point of Wikipedia is to use the most reliable sources, and a peer-reviewed scientific paper is typically a cut or two above the typical article on the same subject published in popular magazines. The abovmentioned scientific paper cited in Fly fishing is primarily about flycasting, and is also primarily about numerical analysis, and is also primary about mechanics: it is not "primarily" about numerical analysis and "secondarily" about flyfishing. Similarly a paper reviewing the health effects of cigars is primarily about health effects and primarily about cigars: it is not "secondarily" about cigars. Your comments may well disagree with my analysis, but it's pretty far-fetched to claim that the analysis is not "addressing" the claim about primary vs. secondary. Eubulides (talk) 02:54, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for societal effects of tobacco use regarding "real" health care cost
Nowhere in the smoking or tobacco pages have I found mention of The New England Journal of Medicine, study "The Health Care Costs of Smoking" [(Volume 337:1052-1057 October 9, 1997 Number 15] http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/337/15/1052) or equivalent study models of the "real" cost to health care as opposed to "natural death". By "real", I mean values that reflect long-term trends rather than the immediate cost. The above study based on Netherlands demographics and healthcare, showed a counter-intuitive (opposite of common wisdom) consequence of smoking cessation. If smoking was to immediately cease there would be in health-care economics, a short-term drop or gain followed by an increase in expenditure that would rise beyond the initial health-care level. This is mostly due to the slightly higher annual costs that smokers incur and their shortened life expectancy. Although this is a politically hot topic there must be other studies regarding the real cost of tobacco in the long term prospective. Even if this study is flawed in some substantial way, I believe that an article needs to address this issue and unless there is another topic created, this seems to be the best candidate.

On a side note: even though tobacco has only a small negative relationship to obesity, it might be useful as a relationship quantifier in terms of healthcare cost. I am at a loss at how to fit that in though. --66.223.168.45 (talk) 23:02, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Please don't move health effects out of sight. Concealing health effects is a necessary and favorite ploy of tobacco sales.
Do not "merge" health effects off this page. Practical effect is moving health effects out of sight -- favorite ploy of tobacco sales.

This article is well organized by putting health effects first, right where they should be. Please keep them there.

Ocdcntx (talk) 02:46, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

smokeless tobacco increased risk of fatal myocardial infarction and especially of stroke
An association was detected between use of smokeless tobacco products and risk of fatal myocardial infarction and stroke, which does not seem to be explained by chance

Ocdcntx (talk) 02:45, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Oral cancers, fatal heart disease, severe addiction
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/science/02qna.html?ref=health

Q. When adolescent boys (and others) substitute smokeless tobacco, the kind held inside the lip or cheek, for cigarettes, what are the health effects?

... an emerging set of risks, including oral cancers, heart disease and several other severe health problems.

In 2009, a review of studies in Sweden and the United States, published in The British Medical Journal, found a clear and significant elevation of the risk of death from fatal heart attacks with the use of smokeless tobacco.

... severe nicotine addiction

... A pattern of combined use of smoking and smokeless tobacco is emerging in young adults, which is of special concern because dual use may be harder to give up

Ocdcntx (talk) 02:48, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Health effects of smoking need to be in the smoking article.
They are effectively hidden when removed from there and stated here.

Ocdcntx (talk) 02:49, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

This article should be distributed among the various forms of intake
Sequestering information about health detriments here effectively censors those effects from readers in a hurry trying to decide, for instance, whether to start smoking. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ocdcntx (talk • contribs) 03:53, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Page loading efficiency and style
This page takes a long time to load, and part of this is due to the use of the standard Wikipedia citation templates such as cite journal. Recently developed faster & smaller Vancouver system templates such as vcite journal would make the page much faster to generate (about twice as fast in my test) as well as significantly smaller in terms of the HTML generated. Let's use them here; they're already in use in Autism, Water fluoridation, etc., and have resulted in major savings both for time and for the size of the generated HTML. Eubulides (talk) 02:40, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Research controversy
Before the "health enthusiasts" out there start throwing rocks at me regarding my intentions, I am not affiliated with any organisation that profits from the sale of tobacciana, am a moderate smoker and always ask permission before I smoke next to a non-smoker rather then consider if smoking is permitted in the given location. I see no mention of the claims denouncing most of the studies regarding tobacco use as either misinterpretation of statistical data, poorly conducted research according to scientific criteria, and/or general bias towards showing negative aspects due to personal motivation. While I have yet to find well conducted studies by the opposing side either, I strongly believe this is worth mentioning in a subsection of its own at least as a wake-up call for more objective research to which one won't have to think of in terms of sides. I do not plan to contribute to this article myself since my interest in the topic is marginal. If anyone should find himself willing to write on this matter, I recommend "In Defense of Smokers" as a starting point and you can go on from there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cs1871210 (talk • contribs) 13:25, 14 March 2010 (UTC)


 * A better place to start would be something more accurate and up to date. How about the following source, for starters? Eubulides (talk) 06:03, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Irrelevant to my proposal and arguably just as flawed as any less recent study.

moved para from "Health Effects"
I have removed the following paragraph from the "Health effects" section:

Most scientists involved in cancer research believe that the environmental factors, which include anything the people interact with such as lifestyle choices, their diet, natural and medical radiation, sunlight exposure, workplace exposure, and socioeconomic factors that affect exposures and susceptibility—may be a major contributor to the development of cancer. Other factors that play a major role in cancer development are infectious diseases, aging, and individual susceptibility such as genetic predisposition. Because of these confounding variables, it is difficult to distinguish which factor or condition contributes to the development of cancer. For example, smoking tobacco is known to cause cancer in humans, but not all people who smoke develop smoking-related cancer; however, with some substances or exposure circumstances, cancer may develop after even brief exposure.

This is mostly because it is not relevant here - this article is specifically about the health effects of tobacco, not a general discussion about cancer and lifestyle. It is also because it is badly referenced - the citations don't even link to anything - certainly not anything that has been peer-reviewed. I am also a little suspicious that it may be an attempt at obfuscation - it appears to be trying to suggest that "anything could cause cancer so don't worry too much about smoking in particular". Cheers, Amaher (talk) 02:21, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

As long as stress gets smokers to smoke more and cancer is arguably stress related, it's next to impossible to prove your point. The goal of most of the research is to advertise rather then to reach strong scientific conclusions. I agree that smoking is addictive and inhaling smoke is bad for your lungs. Anything else is based on genetic predisposition to a given illness. While we're at it, I don't care much for strawberries and I've heard that some people have lethal allergies to them. Should we start a health topic for that as well, with research run by me, contradicting all research proving the benefits as being conducted by strawberry lovers? Just add the paragraph back and we'll all act like you weren't biased and what you did wasn't censure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cs1871210 (talk • contribs) 18:04, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Research controversy
I see no mention of the claims denouncing most of the studies regarding tobacco use as either misinterpretation of statistical data, poorly conducted research according to scientific criteria, and/or general bias towards showing negative aspects due to personal motivation. While I have yet to find well conducted studies by the opposing side either, I strongly believe this is worth mentioning in a subsection of its own at least as a wake-up call for more objective research to which one won't have to think of in terms of sides. As it stands, this article does not meet Wikipedia's standards by far. Here's a good place to start: In Defense of Smokers Also, if anyone can find any detailed tobacco-related study supporting either side which cannot be disproved at a glance, please send it to me so that I might either point out its flaws or retract my statement. Note that I am interested in the way research is conducted more then I am in any results published. Cs1871210 (talk) 01:41, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Reference to broken DOI
A reference was recently added to this article using the Cite DOI template. The citation bot tried to expand the citation, but could not access the specified DOI. Please check that the DOI volume=328 has been correctly entered. If the DOI is correct, it is possible that it has not yet been entered into the CrossRef database. Please complete the reference by hand here. The script that left this message was unable to track down the user who added the citation; it may be prudent to alert them to this message. Thanks, Citation bot 2 (talk) 18:52, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Consider better cigarette/tobacco segregation
Throughout the article, the phases "cigarette smoke" and "tobacco smoke" as well as smoking "tobacco" and "cigarette(s)" are used interchangeably. This may be confusing to an uninformed reader who might believe them to be the same with identical health effects, etc. Nemo728 (talk) 07:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Lead paragraph
Minor note: It lists COPD and emphysema as two potential diseases related to smoking, but emphysema is a form of COPD, as is chronic bronchitis.--Chimino (talk) 22:06, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

The toxicity of smoking
"Toxicity is the degree to which a substance can damage an organism." — from the Wiki article on "toxicity" The Wiki artcle on the health effects of smoking offers plenty of evidence and makes it abundantly clear that tobacco smoke has a fairly high degree of toxicity. In short it's toxic. Tobacco for personal use is a toxic substance. Any article covering and aspect of tobacco production and use should make it clear that it is raised by and large for personal use, as so used is toxic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tonygumbrell (talk • contribs) 01:09, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Mechanics > Genetic
Currently the first line says: "Aespective of smoking status or quantity smoked.[63]" As far as I can tell Aespective is a typo and should read irrespective, but the reference also seems irrelevant to this article as it is a study on lung cancer that found genetics could increase your likelihood to get lung cancer but then also states that "Statistically similar risks were observed irrespective of smoking status or propensity to smoke tobacco." I understand the information is related as smoking can cause lung cancer but I think to be included in this section of the article the study would have had to show people who smoke and have this genetic condition have a higher increased risk than that of non-smokers.203.213.29.159 (talk) 06:07, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Health effects > Psychological
The cognitive effects section starts by declaring that smoking causes Alzheimers Disease, midway through claims that is it indeterminate if smoking causes or protects from Alzheimers disease, then ends by claiming that smoking protects from Alzheimers disease. All three statements CANNOT be true. Dolescum (talk) 02:46, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Hookah
The reference for lung cancer risk of waterpipe smokers is of poor quality. A newspaper article in USA today quotes takes In a June 2004 study, Jane Henley, an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society, found that men who smoked water pipes had five times the risk of lung cancer as non-smokers. When researching in pubmed for a scientific paper on this interesting topic, I didn´t found anything. Obiously, there is no science-based reference for this claim. Shisha-Tom (talk) 10:45, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

hi, i am doctor ashley simon i have realized that over 3.5million on people in this world, has lung cancer/ breathing problems.... the cigarettes smoke affects the lungs, in two individual way! for example: the cigarette smoke can destroy our respiratory system, we all remember that our respiratory system is all about breathing.... the cigarette smoke can cause damage to our cells, in our body! an it can also cause lung cancer!!

your respectfully: doc. ashley simon — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.83.176.247 (talk) 19:53, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

stained hand image
Is it nicotin effect? Seems like tar. Nicotin is colorless. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Staban (talk • contribs) 03:32, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

A logical falicy, cigarette studies with smokers as the conclusion
the term 'smoking' and 'smoker' etc. leads one to believe all forms of smoking were in the study, but most references were to cigarette studies, excluding those of pipe and cigars. This is a logical error and is misleading to the reader, causing them to understand that pipe and cigar smoking are just as unhealthy as cigarette smoking. They are different in type. ei living with wolves is dangerous. I have a dog. wolves and dogs are canines. therefore I am in danger. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brockmacd (talk • contribs) 18:23, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Statistical Significance in Studies section
The second-to-last paragraph discusses an article who's results were inconclusive. I am planning on removing this, as the information to be drawn from the study is not useful for the purposes of this article. WP:MEDRS — Preceding unsigned comment added by Donaldj (talk • contribs) 03:13, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Popular awareness
Does anybody know if a body of folk knowledge existed regarding danger in the time between the popularisation of cigarettes and the statistical proof of the danger of smoking? Presumably it was 'common sense' that it would be dangerous to stand on top of a chimney all day, and the extension to heavy smoking is obvious. Also the London smogs of the early 20th century were well known to cause increased daily fatalities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.53.69.150 (talk) 19:21, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

A body of 'folk knowledge', as you call it, existed long before then - King James I of England (who was also James VI of Scotland) wrote a book condemning smoking, and a doctor of the same period wrote a book which attempted to set out the harm which tobacco does in line with the theory of the four humours - summarised well in this article: http://her.oxfordjournals.org/content/20/1/101.full Hypocaustic (talk) 23:43, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

strong emphasis on smoking
This article has a pretty strong emphasis on smoking. although i think this is probably justified given that smoking is the predominant delivery system for tobacco, I have been reading a bit lately about smokeless tobacco, which seems to get short shrift here. I am proposing to make some edits to the "Particular forms of tobacco use" section, to reorganize it a bit. I am also aiming to introduce a bit of the debate on tobacco harm reduction that has arisen in the literature. I would welcome assistance or comments. -- UseTheCommandLine (talk) 22:25, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Chron´s dicease and Ulcerative colitis- adverse effects
shouldn´t this article include something about the adverse effects of smoking on CD and UC? several different studies shows that smoking increaces the risk for CD while lowering the risk of UC. ( a quick search on pubmed and there are a lot of different studies, both animal model, cohort and prospective to choose from) i´m not shure how to edit or if this have been up to discussison before. jakejakesnake — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jakejakesnake (talk • contribs) 23:45, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Ed Martell
The fact that his study is hosted on a government website, and apparently is viewed as a reliable medical source suggests that peer-review is a joke. The man is claiming that all lung cancers are caused by radon daughters, and doesn't even know that the free isotopes, not the ones attached to particulate matter, are the most dangerous ones. Look for the EU or EC report on radon exposure for the details. How does a man without medical background, doing a few experiments with radioactive sources and radiation detectors in his lab and making up some hypothesis about the cause of lung cancer become a cancer expert? Oh yea, smoking... Ssscienccce (talk) 16:05, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Well...Where Shall I Begin???
The statement "Tobacco is the single greatest cause of preventable death globally." is a catch-phrase used by lobbyist organizations to promote their financial conflicts of interests against The Rights of The People. The key is in the use of the word "preventable" since those who champion this phrase have yet to find a cure for the majority of cancers which are in fact non-tobacco-related. In areas where smoking is on the decline, the number of non-tobacco-related cancers are taking the place of the former tobacco-related cancers, but as other forms of cancer such as Breast and Prostate Cancers.

That the use of the term "tobacco-related cancer" is still the norm indicates the problem. If and when our best and brightest can honestly state in fact that these are cancers caused by tobacco and prove it, then we might be correct in making such claims.

An example: The picture on this page with the chart, "20-Year Lag Time Between Smoking and Lung Cancer". A quick look reveals immediately that for every 150,000 persons who smoke, the annual death rate from tobacco-related lung cancer is only 150 People??? That indicates an annual death rate from tobacco-related lung cancer of less than One Third of One Percent of the smokers. This rate will take 300 years for lung cancer to kill 100% of all smokers, unless of course it ain't so Joe, and I find it curious that that very small number of cancer deaths among smokers might also be largely among Our Poor Citizens, though to be sure, even the number of poor people who smoke are perhaps greater in number than the annual death rate.

The number one cause of death among smokers is heart disease, though there is absolutely no accountability on the part of antismoking organizations as to the matter of nutritional deficiencies and these heart attacks, particularly Pantothenic Acid deficiency which, when combined with Carbon Monoxide forms the essential Co-Enzyme A, but I do not offer this as research or as proof of my contention. Only that there is no neutral overview on the matter of health and tobacco. I do know that the tobacco-related heart diseases per capita are still much lower in actual numbers than the overwhelming hysteria being promoted would indicate.

And COPD in a lifetime of smoking only occurs among 4.5% of the smokers. Even the Second Hand Smoke Section is dubious. Doesn't anyone realize that 38,000 deaths per year attributed to Second Hand Smoke is far fewer than the 300 Million+ American People would have you believe?

From the article: "Non-smokers who are exposed to second-hand smoke at home or work are thought, due to a wide variety of statistical studies, to increase their heart disease risk by 25–30% and their lung cancer risk by 20–30%. Second-hand smoke has been estimated to cause 38,000 deaths per year, of which 3,400 are deaths from lung cancer in non-smokers."

Or are those 38,000 deaths Worldwide??? And yet the casual user inflicted by the mass hysteria being promoted by these conflict of financial interest organizations, including Our Government for higher taxes and Big Tobacco for higher prices, will not notice the small national or worldwide figure. No. Instead we are expected to focus on the "25-30%" as that is a bigger number by percentage. Except...how can there be only 38,000 deaths if the risk is 25-30% on SHS exposure???

Maybe because the term "Risk" is Not Actual. Just like how the Cancer section states a 22.1% RISK for male smokers, but a 1.1% Probability among European Men who do not smoke. The term "Risk" is as factual as considering the risk of death or injury when you drive a car. Again, it ain't so Joe, not until it happens, and then at too low a rate of death to justify the claims of Alliances and Confederacies with their conflicts of financial interest.

And oh, smoking causes Divorce??? How scientific is that when a sparring couple bicker and one of them of course lights up. Is that caused by smoking, or by the hysteria being promoted against smoking? Or what does smoking have to do with a non-compatible couple???

As for the costs of smoking. These figures do not state the costs to the government by the majority of non-smokers or by the majority of non-tobacco-related cancer cases which are three times the number of tobacco-related cancer cases. When The American Cancer Society claims that 1 out of 2 Americans will be diagnosed with Cancer in their lifetime (50) and the rate of smoking is only 20-25% of the people and smoking are on a sharp decline, then where are we??? Slearwig (talk) 12:37, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Content is well referenced. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 18:57, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Were you going to suggest specific changes for the article? If so, please provide proposed content and WP:MEDRS-compliant sources.  If not please review WP:NOTAFORUM.    04:25, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Suggest Title Change
If the above comment is so concerned with the health risks vs. benefits of smoking, suggest changing the title and search criteria of the article to "Health Risks of Smoking" and a new article be written, with proper sources called "Health Benefits of Smoking." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.167.26.148 (talk) 02:13, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Health benefits of smoking
I noticed that this article doesn't contain any discussion of some of the paradoxical health benefits of smoking, which are greatly outweighed by the health risks. Jarble (talk) 16:37, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Looked at the health benefit article and the refs are mostly primary sources. We need proper secondary sources. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 07:43, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Doesn't seem to be a problem when dangers are concerned. An entire section dedicated to the work of a technician of the National Center for Atmospheric Research...
 * Research by NCAR radiochemist Ed Martell suggested that radioactive compounds in cigarette smoke are deposited in "hot spots" where bronchial tubes branch, that tar from cigarette smoke is resistant to dissolving in lung fluid and that radioactive compounds have a great deal of time to undergo radioactive decay before being cleared by natural processes. Indoors, these radioactive compounds can linger in secondhand smoke, and greater exposure would occur when these radioactive compounds are inhaled during normal breathing, which is deeper and longer than when inhaling cigarettes. Damage to the protective epithelial tissue from smoking only increases the prolonged retention of insoluble polonium 210 compounds produced from burning tobacco. Martell estimated that a carcinogenic radiation dose of 80–100 rads is delivered to the lung tissue of most smokers who die of lung cancer.
 * If you read that paper (which is about indoor radon exposure in combination with smoking), you may notice that with his theory, smoking tobacco without radioactive elements in a clean atmosphere (like at sea) would be completely safe (when it comes to lung cancer risk).
 * Smoking an average of 1.5 packs per day gives a radiation dose of 60-160 mSv/year,[141][142]
 * The only working reference tells me: References for the dose estimates are available from the Radiation Safety Training Office by calling 301-496-2255.
 * and I bet it will be Mr Martell's "study".
 * Surprisingly the combination of smoking and indoor radon, the topic of Martell's study, is mentioned under Other harm, and only gets one line, and uses another source. Maybe because he claims that radon daughters sticking to smoke particles are the major cause danger, while EU publications say the unatttached elements are the dangerous ones, something I have mentioned before, not sure if it was this talk page...
 * compared with living near a nuclear power station (0.0001 mSv/year)[143][144] or the 3.0 mSv/year average dose for Americans.[144][145]
 * If comparisons of this kind are allowed (WP:OR??), I've got a nice one: N-Nitrosodi-n-butylamine content of soybean oil vs cigarette smoke, 1 ml equals 100 cigarettes according to the Report on Carcinogens, Twelfth Edition (2011) http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/go/roc12... Ssscienccce (talk) 01:25, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Placed template because of lack of reliable, recent, medical sources: Four dead links, a nonmed primary source, a pbs radiation faq, a BBC Q&A on Fukushima, and an EPA faq page about smoking. Ssscienccce (talk) 15:56, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Image used to illustrate the history of smoking tobacco.
In the History section on the Health effects of tobacco, there is an image of a Grimault's Indian Cigarette advertisement used under the assumption that they were tobacco cigarettes. Grimault's, and other companies, advertised their cannabis cigarettes as, "Indian cigarettes" for the treatment of asthma and other ailments. Seeing as how tobacco was not used in the product, the use of the image does not lend itself to the discussion on the historical use and advertisement of tobacco. One reference in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal: http://books.google.ca/books Shows their use of Cannabis Indica in their preparation of the cigarettes. Instead, I would propose replacing this image with another advertisement poster specifically for tobacco such as this one: http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa_D0312/ or any number of tobacco specific advertisements that have been compiled by duke university in their, "Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920." collection. (All of which can be used for public and private use by using the guidelines here on their copyright page http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa/copyright/Desmire (talk) 07:48, 22 September 2013 (UTC)22 September, 2013

Parkinson's disease
Former and current smokers have a lower incidence of Parkinson's disease compared to people who have never smoked,[109][110] although the authors stated that it was more likely that the movement disorders which are part of Parkinson's disease prevented people from being able to smoke than that smoking itself was protective.
 * Was any evidence provided regarding movement disorders preventing people to smoke? Or is this an example of peer reviewed speculation?  Ssscienccce  (talk) 13:31, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Randomized trials
There are a few randomized trials in which intervention group participants have been asked to quit smoking. For some reason they are difficult to find. I remember looking for information about smoking and lung cancer on the web, and coming up with only observational studies, which are useless for determining causality. Only after writing various experts I was able to track down the big interventional studies. The first is described in Rose et al, 1982 "A randomised controlled trial of anti-smoking advice", it's a British study. The second is Ockene et al, 1990 "The Relationship of Smoking Cessation to Coronary Heart Disease and Lung Cancer in the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT)". There is a more recent one, Anthonisen, 2005 "The Effects of a Smoking Cessation Intervention", which unlike the first two provides free nicotine replacement therapy. I don't see why all of these studies are not mentioned in this Wikipedia article. Is there a rule against citing actual research? 108.252.240.82 (talk) 16:55, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

A logical falicy, cigarette studies with smokers as the conclusion
the term 'smoking' and 'smoker' etc. leads one to believe all forms of smoking were in the study, but most references were to cigarette studies, excluding those of pipe and cigars. This is a logical error and is misleading to the reader, causing them to understand that pipe and cigar smoking are just as unhealthy as cigarette smoking. They are different in type. el living with wolves is dangerous. I have a dog. wolves and dogs are canines. therefore I am in danger.

=== Pipe and cigar smoking are virtually extinct so I doubt if anyone has bothered to collect data. On a worldwide basis only a few percent of tobacco consumption is carried out via pipes and cigars, as opposed to the couple of billion people who use cigarettes. By the way it's "fallacy" not "falicy". --MichaelGG (talk) 07:44, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Financial Costs
I think it would be entirely appropriate to include a section on the financial costs of medical care for smokers each year, and also over the past century. After all, that money could be spent elsewhere and therefore it is affecting the health of everyone, including non-smokers. One of the adverse health effects of smoking is that the financial necessity of caring for smokers is taking money away from the health care of non-smokers; and that it is raising the costs of everyone's health care, not just smokers'. That is a significant health issue which I feel would be appropriate to discuss in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.199.204.112 (talk) 01:37, 30 November 2012‎ (UTC)

I'd like to know the dollar ammount that cigarret smokeing costs the government and the average taxpayer compared to the income that the government receives from the high taxes put on tobacco in the U.S. from the average smoker in a life time (lets say on average 50 years of smokeing a pack per day. Pretty sure that we (and yes I'm a smoker) have already paid for our treatment and then some by the time we actually need to use it....John J(18 Aug 2014)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.210.222.142 (talk) 03:20, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

nicotine?
In the article: "The carcinogenity of tobacco smoke is not explained by nicotine per se, which is not carcinogenic or mutagenic,"

I had thought that nicotine increases the odds of having pancreatic cancer. Might be worth checking out to verify the statement in the article. Givethemahug (talk) 17:39, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
 * See this 2004 study and Snus. But there is more to snus than just nicotine. It is too early to see equivalent studies for e-cigarettes, or AFAIK nicotine gum etc. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 19:33, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh, and "While nicotine, the addictive component of tobacco smoke, is not a carcinogen, it has been shown to promote the growth of non-small cell lung and pancreatic cancers in a receptor-dependent fashion..." from Neoplasia. 2012 Dec;14(12):1102-14, "Nicotine induces inhibitor of differentiation-1 in a Src-dependent pathway promoting metastasis and chemoresistance in pancreatic adenocarcinoma."]. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 19:36, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

dead resource
in first resource the link lead you to a unfounded page --ᔕGᕼᗩIEᖇ ᗰOᕼᗩᗰEᗪ (talk) 08:53, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

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